Mega Man Reverse
by greatn
Summary: An accident leads Mega Man to a world where Dr. Light is an evil madman and Dr. Wily is the hero. Can Mega Man save the world from himself? My first ever published fanfiction, which I first posted on a forum a couple of years ago. Please Read and Review
1. Chapter 1: Origin

Chapter One: Origins 

Mega Man checked his energy gauge. "Twelve units remaining" he thought to himself. He had just finished a battle with Tengu Man, from which he barely arose as the victor. It was the fifth time Mega Man had had to destroy the robot, and the task did not get any easier with experience. "Dr. Light," spoke the blue bomber, "I've just taken Tengu Man down. Has the last of Wily's shield dissipated?"

"Yes, Mega Man." The good Dr. Light continued, "It is as I suspected. The energy of the robot masters you've just defeated was powering the shield which kept me from beaming you in to Wily's lair. I can send you there now, if you'd like."

"I don't think that's a great idea, Doc. I lost a lot of energy in the fight. I couldn't figure out what Tengu Man was weak against, and he seemed stronger than ever this time. I need a little recharge."

"Understandable. I'm lowering our shield for a few moments. Teleport yourself in as soon as possible."

With that, Mega Man activated the teleporter on his arm and reappeared almost instantly back in the lab of his creator, Dr. Light. Dr. Light quickly raised the shield and greeted his creation before going back to tinkering with a new invention of his. Mega Man tried to rest and recover, doing his best to ignore Auto, who was pestering him for bolts. The events of the past week had been tiring. Dr. Wily had attacked again, rehashing the same plan he had used so many times before. Create 8 new robots, send them to conquer some key areas, and take over the world. Usually this would at least give Mega Man a chance to obtain and try out new weapons, but Wily seemed to have lost all of his creativity. The last time he had tried to take over the world, only six of his robots had even been original creations, and this time all of Wily's robots were retrofits of old models. Tengu Man, Shade Man, Gravity Man, Heat Man, Flash Man, Shadow Man, Bomb Man, and Saturn were Mega Man's enemies this time.

It only took Mega Man a few days to take care of these robots. After all, he had fought them all before, at least twice each. This was the sixth time he had fought some version of Heat Man! Wily could hardly be blamed for running out of ideas, however. Wily had had over eighty robot masters under his control in his long war against Mega Man and the planet. It frustrated Mega Man to think that this had all occurred due to one unfortunate lab accident. Dr. Wily hadn't always been evil. He had been a leader in the scientific community, and a humble one at that.

Dr. Wily always dreamed of a world with robots and humans working side by side, helping each other evolve to the next level. His college friend, Dr. Light, had always dreamed of a world with connectivity for every citizen, with a large internet based technology revolution and advanced artificial intelligences helping humans from computer consoles. When both scientists had presented the cases for their projects to the world governing power, Dr. Wily's plan was chosen by the committee, but to his surprise, they wanted Dr. Light to lead the project, combining his advanced AI with Wily's robotics. A normal man would have been petty and jealous, having his own project given to his rival, but Dr. Wily was understanding, and did his best throughout the years to share his knowledge of robotics with Dr. Light, while Light shared his advanced AI knowledge with Wily.

The accident occurred one fateful night while Light and Wily were working diligently to complete their finest creation, Break Man, who was to be the first fully functioning humanoid robot with realistic intelligence and self-awareness. Also known as Proto Man, the red and gray robot was to be the prototype for a line of similar robots, designed to serve as anything from lab assistants to butlers or babysitters. The robot was ready to be shown the next day, but Light and Wily, being the perfectionists they were, stayed in the lab late to try and tweak the specifications a bit. A small steam pipe burst, and Dr. Light shoved Wily out of the way, getting a nasty steam burn on his hand for his trouble. Wily promised to finish up work, and insisted that Dr. Light go see a medical doctor and have a good night's rest. No one is entirely certain what happened that night, but in a large explosion, Proto Man was lost, presumably destroyed, and something happened to Wily that...changed him.

Wily began to act differently from that point. While helping build Proto Man's replacements, Rock and Roll, Wily also insisted on building more robots, each with specific destructive powers. Dr. Light reluctantly helped him while Dr. Wily insisted on the practical uses of each of his designs. "My Ice man is not meant to be a weapon," he would say, "but his Ice Slasher is a necessity in self defense in the dangerous arctic circle. Don't you see, Dr. Light? Ice Man is an explorer! And Bomb Man is designed to use his Bombs to clear out mines, and for legitimate demolition purposes! His programming would prevent him from ever blowing up something he wasn't supposed to!" 

Dr. Light believed him mainly because he wanted to believe him, and helped him build his six destructive robots. One day Dr. Wily came to Dr. Light and made a proposal. If they worked together, Wily proposed that they could rule the world. Their robots could not be stopped. Wily promised more robots in the future, to grant them a hold on the world and immense personal power. When Light refused and refuted the evil doctor's plans, Wily took action himself. He stole the six master robots of Fire Man, Bomb Man, Guts Man, Cut Man, Ice Man, and Elec Man, attempting to take over the world and leaving behind the weak, incomplete Rock and Roll. Dr. Light took action and did the best he could to convert Rock into a powerful fighting machine. To Light's honest surprise, Rock was successful in staving off the robot attack, mainly due to his weapon copy ability, a last minute idea that the good Doctor had added on. Rock became known to the world as Mega Man, and the rest is history. Mega Man fought off Wily countless times since, becoming a true living machine along the way, finding his brother Break Man, gaining new and more powerful abilities, and facing his greatest rival, Bass.

Mega Man recounted these events while he slept, and silently wondered to himself "What if Wily was hit by that steam burst and Dr. Light stayed behind to work on Break Man?" With that chilling thought, he awoke, his energy recharged.

"Dr. Light" chimed Mega Man. "I'm ready to take on Wily."


	2. Chapter 2: Defeat

Chapter 2: Defeat 

"Warning: Intruder has breeched middle level. Intruder now in upper levels."

"Blast!" Dr. Wily slammed his fist on his computer console. "That reprehensible robot is almost here, and so quickly!"

"What did you expect, Wily?" retorted Bass. "You sent some weaklings to do my job. I'm the only person who can destroy Mega Man."

"Well, first of all, Bass, you're not a person," replied Wily much to his creation's annoyance. "And second of all, for the record, those robot masters were supposed to be easy to destroy. I want Mega Man to reach me with full confidence to make his defeat that much more bitter. I'm not going to waste new robot masters just to lure that blue brat to my lair."

"I am gonna laugh so hard when Mega Man destroys whatever your latest war machine is. Then I'll destroy him myself."

"We shall see, Bass. We shall see. In the meantime why don't you make yourself useful and install your new buster? I have to prepare my war machine."

"It's finished?"

"Yes. Simply touch the upgrade in your quarters and you should be able to absorb it and use it normally." Wily was referring to a new upgrade for Bass that allowed him to switch his buster from turbo mode to normal mode. Wily had replaced Bass' normal buster with a turbo buster recently because while it made slicing normal robots down to size easy, it's lack of a supercharged shot made destroying robot masters difficult. Bass had been giving Wily some trouble, destroying anything he built out of jealousy, and Wily was sick of it. Bass, however, proved himself resilient and destroyed Wily's robot masters even with the downgraded weaponry. Wily had made the decision to re-upgrade Bass, since if his robots were going to be destroyed anyway, Bass should be able to hit Mega Man with a supercharged shot.

"Well, you've finally done something right, Wily. Don't worry, I'll be back in time to back you up before Mega Man can destroy you." Bass said as he left. Wily grimaced at that last thought, thinking of the time the blue bomber tried to kill him. Hopefully Mega Man had gotten over that line of thinking.

As soon as Bass was gone, Wily moved on to his latest war machine. It was a variation of the same disappearing flying saucer that he had been using for years, but it had a hidden weapon that not even Bass knew about. Wily had tried many times in the past, unsuccessfully, to build a laser that could destroy Mega Man in one hit. He had never been able to come up with something strong enough. Mega Man would always survive the blast and then dodge the rest, or use an energy tank. Wily had finally figured that he was going about it the wrong way. Instead of outright destroying Mega Man, what if he did something else? Wily viewed his new weapon with glee. The beam was capable of firing a surge of energy through whatever it hit which would interact with any teleporting systems. It was designed to send an energy spike through a teleportation system, significantly increasing its power, and then activate the teleporter and send the victim to a specified location. The energy spike as an added bonus would fry the teleportation system. Wily picked what he thought to be the best location: the Sun. As Wily climbed into and powered up his saucer, he heard a familiar clacking sound. A gate was opening in front of him to reveal none other than Mega Man, buster fully charged.

Wily quickly activated his saucer's cloaking function. "I must admit, Mega Man", he said, "I didn't think you would make it here so easily. Don't expect an easy escape!"

Mega Man closed his eyes and fired his super shot blindly, striking Wily's saucer perfectly, disabling its cloak. "Same to you, Wily!" he retorted. "You've had your last escape!"

Wily frantically worked his saucer to get another cloak up. "How did you do that!?" he asked. Wily had not been expecting any new surprises.

"You've used this saucer trick so many times. You always go to the same spot to start things off. Do you think I wouldn't begin to notice after so many years?" Mega Man fired another shot, which Wily dodged. 

"Time to go on the offensive" thought Wily, decloaking his ship. Wily fired a spread pattern of energy balls to home in on Mega Man. To his utter disappointment, Mega Man dodged them all.

"A year ago, I wouldn't have been able to do that, but now I've had some practice since you keep using the same weapon, Doc."

Wily, tired of the humiliation, decided to try out his trump card. "How about something new, then?" he shouted and fired his teleportation disruption beam. It fired one round glowing ball, which tracked Mega Man and followed him quite quickly. Mega Man did his best to outrun it by sliding, but it was catching up. Wily watched with anticipation as the ball struck Mega Man, it's brightness completely covering the blue robot's body. Finally vengeance was his! Wily's smile turned into a frown as the pink robot emerged from behind the energy ball, unscathed. "Wait a minute? Pink!?" he thought.

"I don't know what that was, Wily, but thanks for the flash stopper. I couldn't have escaped without it." The robot turned from pink to blue and shot Wily with another super-charged blast, while the energy ball hit a wall and dissipated.

"Blast!" shouted Wily, more upset than ever. "I didn't test my weapon against my old robot master weapons!" Wily began charging another shot of his teleportation disruption beam. "Nevertheless," he thought, "unless Mega Man has a W tank, he can only use Flash Stopper once." The beam would take a little longer to recharge the second time, so Wily went into his normal attack mode, doing the best he could against an opponent who knew all his tricks. Mega Man pummeled Wily's saucer, reducing its energy dangerously low while only taking minimal damage himself. As Mega Man was ready to finish him off, he was greeted with a supercharged blast from behind.

"See, Wily?" taunted Bass. "I told you I'd be here to save your tail!"

Mega Man panicked. Taking on Bass was always difficult, but fighting the black and gold robot would be even more difficult with Wily's saucer to contend with. Mega Man switched to atomic fire and began charging, focusing his efforts on Bass. Wily used the opportunity to cease all functions of his saucer and route all power to the disruption beam. Mega Man successfully dodged all of Bass' shots while charging his own. As the atomic fire reached maximum capacity, he noticed that Wily's saucer had stopped functioning. It was too good an opportunity to waste, so Mega Man turned and fired his atomic heat directly at Wily. The shot was more than enough to completely obliterate the saucer, and Wily's own personal emergency shield barely functioned in time. Wily flew from the explosion, landing hard on the floor and rolling to a nearby computer console, barely maintaining consciousness.

Mega Man was a little shocked at how effective his shot had been, and his pause allowed Bass to strike him with another charged shot. "Alright, now you've made me angry!" shouted Mega Man's rival as he rushed towards the blue robot. Mega Man glanced at his energy gauge. Bass' two charged shots combined with the damage Wily's saucer had inflicted left him with only nine energy bars.

"I'd better make every shot count," he thought as he quickly leapt over Bass and slid under a charged shot, delivering one of his own. As that battle raged on, Wily pulled himself to his feet and banged his fists on the computer console. His plans had been completely ruined. There was no way to hack into Mega Man's teleporter using the pure radio waves his fortress had at command, much less send an energy spike through it. Wily could only control his own robot's teleportation systems, and even those had limited range. Wily looked to the wreckage of his saucer, and spotted something that caused him to grin.

Bass continued his frenzied assault on Mega Man, but Mega Man remained calm and dodged every shot, choosing his own shots very carefully. Bass still had the advantage. The fight continued at a stalemate as Wily dug through the wreckage of his saucer. He found what he was looking for and ran towards the two robots. "Bass! Use your weapon copy ability on this item! It's point blank range, but one shot should completely disable Mega Man! Wily attempted to toss the round, metallic object towards Bass, but slipped at the last second, sending it straight towards Mega Man!

"I'll take that!" retorted Mega Man as he leapt to absorb the weapon himself, turning silver and white. Wily quickly ran back to his console and frantically pressed some buttons. "Lights out, Bass!" shouted the blue bomber as he unleashed a punch directly into Bass' chest, activating his weapon. The black robot winced in pain as an energy spike traveled through his system, while Wily grinned with pleasure, pressing one more key on his command console. Bass' teleporter activated, and Mega Man, being in physical contact with him, disappeared in a flash of black light along with Bass.

Wily sighed with relief. "Sorry, Bass, but to make an omelet, you have to break a few eggs."


	3. Chapter 3: Escape

Chapter 3: Escape 

Darkness. Silence. Mega Man had teleported literally thousands of times before. It was always so short, though; a hundredth of a second or less. Four seconds. Five seconds. A short period of time that felt like eternity. Would this teleport ever end? Where would he end up? Eight seconds. Nine seconds. What had Wily done to him? Why did everything feel so chaotic and calm at the same time? Fourteen. Fifteen. Sixt...

Sixteen. On the sixteenth second, Mega Man opened his eyes and reemerged from the teleport. The malevolent rays of the sun blinded him almost immediately. Instinctively, Mega Man grabbed hold of Bass's shoulder. Bass himself looked around, stunned. Complete darkness was on one side, with blinding light on the other. It took a few moments for both of their eyes to adjust and see normally. For nearly a minute they floated there in shock, until Bass broke the silence.

"What the hell did you do?"

"What the hell did I do? What did Wily do? Try to give you a weapon that would teleport me into the sun?"

"Wait a minute, why is your voice so weird and muffled? Come to think of it, why can I hear you at all?"

"There's usually no sound in space because there is nothing for the sound to travel through. No air. I'm holding onto your body so our voices are actually traveling through our metallic compositions. Imagine putting your ear on a metal beam while someone else speaks through a megaphone attached to the beam."

"So all I have to do is shoot your arm off and I won't have to hear you. Great. Hold still."

"Wait, Bass!" Mega Man pondered the situation carefully. "Whoever's fault this is, we are hanging in space only a few ten thousand kilometers from the sun. I don't know what kind of temperature your system can take, but mine is pushing it as it is. I'm willing to bet Wily was trying to teleport me right into the sun, but I destroyed the machine he was using to do it. He can't control my teleporter, so he must have used yours to send us here. That weapon he threw allowed me to send an energy spike through your system, resulting in increased output to the teleporter, specifically."

Bass growled under his breath, or would have, if he had a breath. "I wouldn't put it past that old coot. All right, I'm no science wizard, so I'm pretty sure I'm going to die here. Unless you have a plan to get us out of this, I'm going to start blasting. I may as well make my last action worthwhile."

"I do have an idea. I still have that energy spike weapon. Could you take another hit?"

Bass looked at his energy meter. "Yeah, I'm good to go."

"Ok, I'll hit you with the weapon, and you activate your teleporter. You can take both of us back to Wily's castle."

"Ok. I can set my teleporter on a time delay so you can just punch me at the exact right time." Bass added "But as soon as we materialize in the Doc's fortress, no more talking. You're mine."

Mega Man checked his own energy meter and grimaced, then nodded in agreement. "It's ready," said Bass. "Five seconds. Four seconds. Three. Two. One." Mega Man began to activate his energy spike weapon, but to his surprise, his arm was hit with a supercharged shot from Bass, causing him to miss. Bass quickly grabbed Mega Man and absorbed the energy before he could react, turning Silver and white while Mega Man changed back to blue. As quickly as he had done that, Bass kicked himself off of Mega Man, pointed straight at his face, and mouthed the word "Zero." In a flash, Bass hit himself with the energy spike and disappeared as his teleporter activated. Before Mega Man could fully take in what had just happened, he fell unconscious. 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

"Yes, Dr. Light, I'm afraid it's quite true. Mega Man is dead, unless of course you built a robot capable of surviving the molten core of the sun!" Dr. Wily taunted over the videophone, smiling triumphantly while several mets cleaned up the mess from his last battle. Only five minutes had passed before Wily had finished "mourning" Bass and moved on to gloating.

"You won't get away with this, Wily! There will be others!" Dr. Light replied, trying to hold in both his rage and his tears at the same time. 

"Others? You can't just build another Mega Man! He was a living machine by some freak accident! His free thinking is what got him this far! His experience! His character! You can't just build that!" Doctor Light could think of no reply and was silent, staring blankly at the screen. "Look, Doctor, we're old college friends, and I know how you feel. My precious Bass is dead as well. I had to use his teleport to get Mega Man to the sun. He was one of a kind, and he can't be rebuilt." Dr. Wily thought for a moment. "Ah, who do I think I'm kidding? I can easily build another one!" Dr. Wily began to laugh maniacally, until the monitor in front of him exploded. Wily turned around to see Bass standing there with his buster pointed directly at him.

"Build another one? Like hell you will, old man!" Bass gave Wily a stern look and began charging his buster. Wily turned as pale as a ghost and fell unconscious. "Damn it!" Bass shouted, "You will be awake when I kill you!" Bass began to approach Wily, but stopped cold when he heard a familiar whistle behind him. 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

Mega Man slowly opened his eyes, hoping he would awaken in Dr. Light's lab. Maybe Duo would have found his unconscious form and taken him back to Earth. Perhaps Dr. Light remodified Rush for space travel to save his creation. Alas, when Mega Man opened his eyes, Earth was nowhere in sight. To make matters worse, his energy meter read at a measly one. The heat was getting to him, and there was no telling when his body would fail and let that last energy release.

"I can't go like this..."Mega Man spoke to himself. "I've been through too much. I will not go away as some floating hunk of melted debris! I will fight this!" Mega Man looked at his weapons. The flash stopper was spent, and the energy spike was gone. If only Mega Man had used the energy spike on himself! Being defeated by Bass was one thing, but being outsmarted by Bass was a punch in the stomach. Mega Man still had the Shadow Blade, but what good could it possibly do here? The Noise Crush would be utterly useless in the vacuum of space. The same would go for atomic fire. Bombs and Tornado Hold also had little practical use here. Gravity hold...now that held some potential. The last weapon...Black Hole? Yes, Mega Man had gotten Black Hole from Saturn. "If I can just reverse these weapons so they affect me..."Mega Man thought.

Mega Man's plan was not too complex, but it was incredibly dangerous. He went over it in his head while jerry-rigging his weapon copy to affect himself. First he would shoot a black hole to draw himself towards the immense gravity well, gravity so strong that not even light could escape. Then, while traveling at that immense speed, Mega Man would activate the gravity hold, reversing all gravities in the immediate area. This would slingshot him at near light speeds, toward what, he didn't know, but it would be away from the sun. Mega Man finished his rigging and also tied in his teleportation system to send him a healthy distance away from the black hole as soon as it fired.

Bam. Blip. Whoosh. Step one was complete. The tiny black hole began to pull Mega Man in as he appeared a few kilometers away. Mega Man felt the enormous strain of gravity trying to rip him in several directions at once, and waited until he could absolutely bear no more. Mega Man fired the gravity hold, hoping to reverse all forces, but that was not the effect he achieved. The black hole changed, becoming a stark white thing. It appeared to Mega Man as if all of reality was made of an expensive tarp, and someone had just cut away a piece of that tarp, revealing the blank white space which lie beyond. The enormous forces at work had created a rip in the very fabric of reality. Mega Man continued traveling in a straight line, his mind no longer able to understand the speeds at which he was traveling or the strain on his body. Mega Man looked at his energy gauge. As everything before him washed away into absolute white, his energy reading was the last thing he saw. Zero.


	4. Chapter 4: De Ja Vu

Chapter 4: De Ja Vu 

Mega Man opened his eyes again, much to his surprise. How could he be operational with no energy? A quick glance at his energy meter revealed that his energy was now increasing, and rapidly. All Mega Man could see around him was glowing green luminescence. He had somehow left the material plane of existence through that strange white hole. This, by Mega Man's reckoning, had to be some plane of positive energy. It was completely devoid of matter, other than the blue bomber himself. Mega Man had pushed himself to the limit before, but this was the first time he had ever been reduced to zero energy units. He didn't even know that was possible. The robot let out a sigh of relief as his energy once again hit full capacity, just before Mega Man realized what his current situation was.

He had somehow ripped a hole in reality, and was now traveling at an unknown velocity through pure energy. Luckily, Mega Man's capacitance system was very advanced, and would not allow any excess positive energy to enter and overload his body. 'Well," he thought to himself, "I guess I'll just have to make another rip in reality and hope for the best." Mega Man attempted to switch to the Black Hole only to discover it was no longer in his system. Quickly, Mega Man checked his other weapons only to see that they had all gone. "My body must have converted all weapon energy into life energy in an attempt to save me back there, and it worked! Fascinating!" Mega Man then realized he was back at square one. "Well," he thought, "if this really is a plane of pure energy and if it is as packed to the brim as it looks, there isn't room for any more." Mega Man begun charging a shot. Excess energy would have to go somewhere. If there wasn't any room, the energy of a charged shot may very well cause a rupture.

Mega Man pointed in a direction, ready to fire when he remembered his likely location would not be Earth upon exiting this plane. After giving his teleporter a glance, he decided that he would need to create an energy spike in his system. The only way to do this was by overriding his energy capacitance safeguards. As a normal robot, he would be able to instantly access his programming and disable a few conditional branches, easily causing an energy surge. Mega Man was not a normal robot, however. His chance encounter with a cloning machine on his very first foray into Wily's castle had caused the spontaneous eruption of life within him. As a living machine, he possessed free will and a self-consciousness and thought process closer to that of a human than a robot. He could access his programming mentally, but with great difficulty. His ability to do so was similar to a Zen master's ability to slow his heart rate. Mega Man concentrated and closed his eyes.

"Arm," he said to himself, "let the energy through!" After deep concentration, he got the desired effect. A painful surge worked its way through Mega Man's arm. The resilient robot let forth his supercharged blast and as much rapid fire as he could handle, tapping his teleporter with his other arm. If this plane of energy was a living being, it would have dropped its jaw in surprise at the sheer amount of energy the tiny blue robot shot forth. Dr. Light's engineering was fantastic, fitting a near infinite amount of energy into such a small package. Faced with a tiny bit more energy than it was used to, reality ripped itself apart once more, opening a small hole for the energy to travel through. Mega Man drifted straight through the rip in reality just before it could sew itself back together. His vision flooded with pure blue: the familiar blue of a teleport.

Mega Man had hit the teleporter recall button, which would theoretically return him right back to where he disappeared from. This time, the journey was longer, however. A full thirty seconds passed before the blue bomber found himself standing in Dr. Wily's inner chamber. Mega Man landed behind some crates with a good vantage point to spy on what was happening. Wily was muttering something to himself and crawling into what appeared to be another saucer craft, almost perfectly identical to the first. Mega Man began to accumulate a charge when he heard a familiar clacking sound. Mega Man whirled his head around to see none other than himself walking through a gate to confront Wily.

"I must admit, Mega Man" touted Wily as he cloaked his vehicle, "I didn't think you would make it here so easily! Don't expect an easy escape!"  
The new Mega Man closed his eyes and let forth a super shot, hitting the saucer straight on and disabling its cloaking function.

"Don't expect any escape!" retorted the blue warrior.

"How did you do that!?" shouted Wily as he scrambled to reactivate the cloak.

"Wait...I've already seen all of this," thought Mega Man. "That's me, before I was sent into space!" Mega Man decided he'd best not interfere, so he stay hidden behind the crates. Wily tried the standard attack pattern, which the other blue bomber dodged, before unleashing his teleportation disruption beam. Again, the other Mega Man used the flash stopper to dodge it. The fight looked the same as Mega Man remembered it. From his vantage point, Mega Man was even able to see Bass sneaking behind his other self as Wily's saucer was running low on steam.

"Don't worry, Doc!" Bass shouted, releasing a charged shot into the back of Mega Man. "I've got you covered!"

"Thanks, Bass" the Doc replied as he began charging his weapon again.  
Mega Man furrowed his brow. It was all a little fuzzy in his head, but was that what Bass and Wily had said earlier? Before he could ponder it further, the other Mega Man had switched to Atomic Fire and destroyed Wily's saucer, hurling him to a command console right near Mega Man's hiding place. Mega Man ducked behind the crates and peeked carefully around the corner to witness the rest of the fight.

"My plan is ruined!" shouted Wily as he pounded his fist on the console. Wily cautiously made his way back towards the wreckage of the saucer. Bass and Mega Man fought ferociously in the meantime, but it appeared as if Mega Man was gaining the upper hand.

"Wily, get back to the console!" shouted the black and gold robot. "Don't forget, we had a backup plan." Bass then changed colors to silver and white. 

"No, Bass, I can't let you sacrifice yourself! Come on, we've got to get out of here!" was Wily's response. Mega Man knew that wasn't right. He looked on, intrigued.

"It's our only chance to get rid of Mega Man! We have to take it!" shouted Bass, dodging a super shot. "I can only teleport to preset locations, so program the coordinates!"

The other Mega Man was getting tired of the conversation that didn't involve him, and spoke out. "You know what, Bass? I just realized I've been aiming at the wrong target!"

"What do you mean?" Bass replied, but by the time the question was leaving his lips, it was too late for him to do anything. Mega Man's double raised a charged arm cannon and let loose a shot aimed straight for Dr. Wily. In a flash Wily was gone and all that remained was a smoldering command console where he had been standing. "No!" the black robot shouted, falling to his knees.

"I see you're going to make this easy for me," Mega Man's double smirked as he spoke and walked toward Bass with another charged arm cannon at the ready. Before he could shoot, he was knocked onto his face by the force of another blast from behind. Their stood Mega Man, holding Wily by the lab coat.

"What do you think you're doing?" he questioned with rage, releasing another charged shot, this time into his double's chest. The double raised his arm to return fire, but was caught in the back again by a shot from Bass. Seeing the situation had turned against him, Mega Man's double quickly activated its teleporter and disappeared from view. Mega Man set Wily down. "Are you alright?" he asked. Wily raised a finger, pointed towards Mega Man, opened his mouth as if to reply, and promptly fainted.


	5. Chapter 5: Revisionist History

Chapter 5: Revisionist History

"What are you up to? What's the game?" Bass demanded, keeping his arm cannon fixed on Mega Man.

Mega Man could hardly think of a reply for the situation. "Something weird is going on" was the best he could come with, and that didn't seem to comfort Bass. Mega Man backed away from Wily, but kept his arm cannon active at his side. "I'm about 67 sure that I'm not your enemy" he added.

"Change your cannon back into an arm, and then I'll change mine," Bass said as he moved towards Wily.

"You first, yours is pointed at me."

"You first. You're in my house."

Mega Man reluctantly changed his arm cannon back into an arm, and to his relief, Bass followed suit. The two rivals eyed one another for a few moments until Mega Man broke the silence. "As strange as this may sound, that Mega Man wasn't me, and you aren't the Bass I know, are you?"

Bass replied quickly. "You definitely don't seem to be the same as the other Mega Man, though I'm the same as always. Who built you? Are you a gift from Cossack?"

"Cossack? No, I was built by Dr. Light. You should know that."

Bass quickly put himself in between Mega Man and Dr. Wily. "What is your trick then? Tell me why the hell you're in here saving the Doc's life! Why are there two of you?"

Mega Man quickly realized this conversation could go in circles, and decided to explain in full how he got here. He quickly pointed to the wreckage of Wily's saucer. "A few hours ago, I came in here and destroyed that thing. Wily then tried to equip you with its weapon, but I caught it. I hit you with the weapon and Wily teleported us both into space near the sun. You escaped back down here by tricking me into giving you the weapon. I then tried to use the Black Hole to cause gravity to hurl me away from the sun, but something weird happened, and I ended up in some kind of 'dimension' full of nothing but energy. I overloaded the 'dimension' with my own energy and ripped a hole back into normal space. I was also able to cause an energy spike in my teleport system, and used it to teleport back here. Then I saw myself attacking Wily's saucer." Mega Man paused for breath, even though he technically didn't need to breathe.

Bass interjected, "So you are from a few hours in the future. After a while in space, you came back, mysteriously transported through time with the intention to prevent yourself from being sent into space in the first place." Bass formed a fist. "And now there's two of you!"

Mega Man interrupted. "No! That isn't what happened! I thought I went back in time too, but I only wanted to watch, and then arrest Wily as soon as my past self was sent into space! When I watched the battle, however, it was decidedly different!!"

Bass looked skeptical. "Different how?"

"First of all, I was performing much smoother in the fight. When I fought you in my past…" Mega Man thought about it for a moment and decided Bass didn't need to know that he had had the advantage. "When I fought you, we were evenly matched, but when my other self was just fighting you, he had a clear advantage. Also, in my version, Wily tricked you into taking me into space. This time you volunteered and he refused to let you do it!"

"So what are you saying?" Bass queried.

"Exactly what I said a minute ago. That's a different Mega Man, you're a different Bass, and that's a different Wily."

Bass began to talk but was interrupted by his creator. "I believe him, Bass," Wily said as he grabbed his robot's shoulder to help pull himself up. "After all, he saved my life. We should give him the benefit of the doubt."

Bass was shocked. "But it's Mega Man! He can't be trusted! This is one of Light's schemes!" A confused look grew on Mega Man's face after hearing that particular sentence, but Wily spoke before he could.

"Based on his story, I would say this robot has somehow survived a trip from an alternate world through the ethereal plane and ended up in our material world."

"But he said he came here to arrest you!"

"Ah, yes," said the aged scientist, tossing a stern look toward Mega Man, "and we won't be having any of that! But why, exactly, did you want to arrest me?"

Mega Man finally gathered his thoughts and spoke up: "For crimes against humanity. You were trying to conquer the world again, with eight more robot masters."

"You say conquer, and I say liberate. I think you'd find that most of the world agrees with me." This comment visibly upset Mega Man. He always hated it when an evil dictator tried to pose as a benevolent freedom fighter.

"Is that why you stole the six robot masters and used them to conquer key areas of Monsteropolis?"

"Conquer? Those robots were there to protect those areas until you destroyed them all!"

"So I suppose when you sent out the next eight, you were 'liberating' those zones for the people."

"Exactly! Those robots were no match for you, though."

"Ok, so when you pretended to have amnesia and built the peacekeeping robot of mass destruction, Gamma..."

"Yes, I knew Dr. Light would be all for it: anything for more power. It was my plan to steal the robot and use it to liberate this planet's citizens!" Mega Man started to speak again, but was interrupted. "I suppose next you are going to tell me that Kalinka willingly 'convinced' her father Dr. Cossack to stop his assault on you, that Protoman didn't kidnap her, forcing me to intervene! Perhaps you'll tell me that people didn't rejoice after the successful use of Dark Man to arrest Dr. Light, and then you'll tell me that they didn't cry when you freed the mad scientist. Maybe you'll deny how you almost stole the upgrades meant for Bass, or how you and Dr. Light infused yourselves with the dark energy and destroyed that poor robot, Duo."

Anger started to rise within Mega Man until he suddenly remembered the dream he'd had just mere hours ago. "Dr. Wily," he asked, "the night before you unveiled Protoman, did you suffer a steam burn and leave Dr. Light to finish things up?"

Dr. Wily just closed his eyes and nodded.

"In my version of history Dr. Light got hit by the steam, and you had the accident in the lab."

"The accident where Protoman disappeared?" Wily questioned as he looked up at Mega Man. This time it was Mega Man who silently nodded, and the scientist finally let his guard down. For the next few hours they discussed the histories of their lives, comparing and contrasting the worlds. Everything was so entirely surreal for Mega Man, for the histories were almost completely identical, the only difference being which side each scientist had fought on. In this world Dr. Light had stolen Mega Man for use in conquering the world, while Wily finished the other six robots to stop him. When Wily failed the world fell under the control of Dr. Light. Dr. Wily built the next eight robot masters and tried again, unsuccessfully, to stop Dr. Light, but he was defeated again. After that Dr. Wily faked amnesia and convinced Dr. Light that he was his ally. He fooled Light into helping him build Gamma, which Wily used to overthrow Dr. Light for a short time, until Mega Man had once again destroyed his robots and re-conquered the land.

Dr. Wily next found an ally in Dr. Cossack, who helped Wily take back some of the land from Light, until Dr. Light found Proto Man and convinced him to kidnap Cossack's daughter, Kalinka. Mega Man and his creator took the world back once more, but Dr. Wily was at least able to rescue Kalinka and find Cossack a place to hide out. Next, the aged scientist tried to divide his enemies by using a fake Protoman clone named "Dark Man" to kidnap Dr. Light. Light was eventually freed by Mega Man and Protoman working together, but the world was no longer under his control. All of that changed quickly, when Dr. Light entered a world robotics seminar under the false name of Mr. X. He used the opportunity to unleash Mega Man and take out most of the world's most advanced robots, but Dr. Wily led the resistance with the help of the 8 strongest robots from the competition. Unfortunately, they weren't enough and Dr. Wily was captured.

Wily always had a backup plan, however. With no response from him, five of his most powerful creations awoke, including Bass, and Wily was able to break free and prevent Mega Man from obtaining upgrades that would have made him practically invincible. Even when he made four more robot masters, however, Wily was still no match for the pesky blue bomber. Mega Man asked Wily to end his story there, because he had no desire to hear what had become of his friends Duo and King. Wily complied.

Mega Man began to question the doctor once more. "Ok, so this world is very similar to my own, but with me and Dr. Light on the side of evil. We know it all links back to that accident and the steam burn, but what happened to change that event? Why did it happen to Dr. Light and not you? Did I do something to the time stream?"

Wily shook his head. "No, no, I believe you are simply from an alternate dimension. I don't think you have affected any past events in your or any other world. I had theorized this the moment I fainted. I was distrusting of you at first because while you seemed good, I thought you might be from a world where Dr. Light was simply tricking you into fighting for him with lies. I see that is not the case."

Mega Man nodded. "And I'm guessing you could see why I wouldn't trust you. But my question now is: how do I get back to my world?"

"You're very lucky," suggested Dr. Wily, "because before I invented that weapon to beam you into the sun, I was experimenting with inter-dimensional vortexes. I surmised I might simply be able to banish Mega Man to another world, but I ended the project because I didn't want to unleash something like that anywhere else."

Mega Man was about to speak, but Bass spoke first. "It was very interesting science, too. Wily surmises that the universe is made up of vibrating strings on a subatomic level. The vibration pulse of an object in any given dimension would be different from the same object's pulse in any other dimension. By overloading a small area with too much matter or energy of the incorrect vibration pulse, one could theoretically create a breech between dimensions for the excess matter to flow into. Of course the catch is without a matter sample from another dimension you could never determine where you would be heading, and there are a few scientific hitches with overloading an area with matter or energy. It's like trying to put two things in the same place at once!" Bass and Wily chuckled following the last sentence as if it were one of the funnier things they had ever heard. Mega Man's jaw dropped.

"Bass? You're into science?" the blue bomber asked with a look of total shock on his face.


	6. Chapter 6: Unlikely Allies

Chapter 6: Unlikely Allies

"Always have been", the black and gold warrior responded. "I was, after all, built to be a lab assistant. Once Dr. Light was captured, Wily built me to help on some peaceful research. Light escaped and then Wily was captured, however. I modified myself into a weapon and helped orchestrate his escape. Dr. Wily finished upgrading me then to combat Mega... well, you."

"Have you had any success?" Mega Man asked.

"No, not really. You were built as an exclusive war machine after the accident with Protoman. I'm just a modified lab robot. I've never been able to beat you, especially after you bonded with the evil energy. I've bested Roll a few times, though."

Mega Man decided he'd rather not hear about his sister the war machine, so he quickly changed the subject. "You... you were speaking about an inter-dimensional transporter relating to string theory?"

"Yes, though it is incomplete", remarked Bass.

"I still have my design notes and even the raw materials available to build such a contraption" interjected Wily. "Like I said earlier, I halted research because I found the prospect of sending my problems to another dimension a bit underhanded. I see my counterpart from your world did not."

Bass corrected his creator. "Actually, his Wily sent him into space. You must have still been knocked out when he explained that."

"I was trying to send you into the sun. One would think an evil version of myself wouldn't be so lenient as to just blast you into space." Wily furrowed his brow, giving Mega Man a quizzical glance.

"I think he simply miscalculated. I destroyed the weapon so he tricked me into absorbing it by throwing it towards me and telling Bass to hit me with it. I hit Bass, and Wily activated his teleporter system, sending us both towards the sun. The extra mass is probably what prevented us from making it all the way to the sun." Mega Man went ahead and explained the strange situation that had led to him being flung into this universe, as well, since he knew Wily would ask. 

"Fascinating," the aged scientist and his creation echoed at the same time. Dr. Wily continued. "Your method of travel is a little dangerous, but I think I may be able to complete my invention. I do, of course, have a condition."

Mega Man sighed heavily. This sounded like the Wily he knew. "What kind of condition?" he asked.

"I'll be blunt. I like you. I believe you. I even trust you, to an extent." Wily paused for a moment and cleared his throat. "I've been fighting this war for too long. I don't know how much longer I am going to last. I'm an old man. My last project to destroy Mega Man is proceeding too slowly. Suddenly I am given a gift from the heavens; a Mega Man who may very well be on my side. What I am trying to say is... What I want you to do..."

Mega Man completed Wily's sentence. "...is to destroy Mega Man." Wily nodded and coughed again, and Bass stared on in disbelief. "I trust you about as far as I can throw you, Wily." Bass began to form a fist. "Luckily for you, that's a moderate distance." Bass relaxed once again. "But why, Wily, if you are such a good man would you require me to do you a favor in order to get me back home?"

Wily's answer was short and to the point. "I must spend all of my time focused on stopping your counterpart and Dr. Light. My life will not last for too many more years, and I must spend every waking moment working on my robotic creations, especially my latest project. I can't afford to divert my resources elsewhere."

Mega Man considered this fact, and abruptly spoke up. "Ok, I have some conditions of my own. I'm checking this world out first. I have to see if it is really as bad as you are implying. I have to make sure that my counterpart is actually evil. Then and only then will I fight him. I also have a second condition." Wily nodded, as if approving the first condition. "I win this war for you, and you show me everything that you had ready for building: the top secret project of yours, whatever your next robot masters would be, Bass' primary design parameters. I want all of the information. If our universes are already this similar then some of them will coincide with the information in mine. I can put a stop to my war."

Wily offered his hand. "It's a deal," he said. The blue bomber abruptly shook Wily's hand and took a few steps back. Activating his recall, Mega Man's fighting uniform disappeared, leaving him in civilian clothes, a plain blue T-shirt, tennis shoes, and some jeans.

"Will I be recognized in this form?"

"Probably," said Bass. Bass himself morphed into civilian clothing as he said this, donning black corduroy pants with brown boots, a brown belt with a golden buckle, and a purple tank top. Mega Man was especially surprised to see Bass' helmet disappear, revealing shoulder length blonde hair. It was the first time he had seen Bass without a helmet.

"Why are you changing into civilian clothes?" Mega Man asked Bass. Mega Man closed his eyes and changed his colors to a tanner skin shade, green eyes, and red hair while he waited for his answer. While his color change ability was mainly used to indicate which weapon Mega Man was wielding, he often found it useful as a disguise.

"I'm coming with you." Bass replied, changing his own hair to black and causing the purple markings to disappear from his face. "Dr. Wily trusts you, but I don't." Bass continued before Mega Man could interrupt. "Besides, if you fight our Mega Man, you'll need my help." Mega Man couldn't help but agree.

"Alright, Bass, I'm going to teleport to Monsteropolis to check things out there. My teleporter has city square preset in it. Since we're going incognito, you should call me Rock."

"Good idea, that will avoid confusion," replied Bass. "Call me Forte." Mega Man nodded and reached for his teleporter.

"Teleporting now," he said, and disappeared in a beam of blue. Bass started to reach for his teleporter, but thought for a moment and turned to his creator.

"Um, Doc, I just realized something."

"What is it?" replied the scientist.

"He just teleported into the middle of city square!"

"So?" was the reply. 

"Remember what city square was replaced with a couple of years ago after Light built another square elsewhere?"

A look of shock and realization appeared on the scientist's face. "Surely you don't think that he would be teleporting to the old one by mistake, do you?" he asked, half directing the question at himself.

"Doc, there's no reason for the old one to have ever been torn down in a world where an evil scientist never took over!" Bass hooked his arm to a nearby console and started typing. 

"Oh no," the scientist said to himself. "Bass, be careful! Set your timer for five minutes. You know how dangerous that place is!" By the time Wily had finished, however, Bass was gone in a flash of light.


	7. Chapter 7: Labyrinth of Judgment

Chapter 7: Labyrinth of Judgment

Mega Man materialized in what appeared to be the city square of Monsteropolis. The statue of the city's founder was there, along with a statue of a MET, the first helper robot created by Dr. Light and Dr. Wily long before they had even begun development on Proto Man. The plaque underneath was the same: "Long may man and machine live together, helping one another - Dr. Light". This square is the first project ever completed by the Mobile Engineering Techs, also known as METalls, for their alltranium shells. Alltranium, a new material researched by Dr. Wily, is an almost invincible metal that, while highly unmalleable and inflexible, can be used to create protective shields. These shields will ensure that METalls are safe from harming themselves in building large projects in case of collapse." An interesting tidbit, for sure, Mega Man thought. It always made destroying those METs more difficult than it should be. Mega Man sometimes wished he were made of the stuff, though if he were he would hardly be able to move. Protoman's solution was to carry a shield made of the stuff. Mega Man quickly stopped his own reminiscing and looked around to see if there were any differences.

He quickly found them. Looking past the pavement he had landed on, Mega Man noted that the grass was in reality synthetic, and the trees were made of rubber. The backdrop was entirely painted on. Mega Man was in a room not much larger than a robot master's lair, with incredibly detailed and realistic paintings of the city surrounding him on all four sides. Any fool could tell the room was a fake, of course, but Mega Man had landed right in front of the statue, which had blocked his view. The statues and the plaque seemed to be the only authentic items there. Confused, Mega Man went to check the walls for some kind of door, but as soon as he touched it, the wall let loose a strong electric charge. It was nothing to the blue robot, but it was enough of a charge to cause a lot of pain to anything else.

Whatever the light source for the room was ceased, and light shone only on the statues and plaque, which rotated to reveal a new message. "Long may man and machine live together, serving their master - Dr. Light" A voice spoke these words as Mega Man read them, and the statue of Monsteropolis' founder turned into a statue of Light. The MET turned into Mega Man, showing a look of contempt on his face. The plaque and voice continued, but this voice was Mega Man's own. "Welcome to the Labyrinth of Judgment. This dream of mine was made reality by Dr. Light. If you're here, then you have done something to anger me. Perhaps you longed for that old dream of peace and prosperity for all man and machine. Maybe you complained about something too loud. Maybe I just don't like your face. At any rate, welcome to your final resting place. Think twice in your next life before speaking out." At the end of the statue's speech, the room began to shift as a downward moving elevator. Mega Man stood there, jaw agape in horror, looking at a world in which he was the villain. He couldn't believe it, but Wily and Bass really were telling the truth. Mega Man fell to his knees and grabbed his head, trying to come to grips with this new reality.

"Rock," a voice consoled. "You aren't my friend, but you should not have had to find out like that."

Mega Man turned around to see Bass. "How could I... how could anyone be that evil? YOU aren't even that evil in my world!"

"Look, Rock, he's always been bad, but not that bad. It's the evil energy. It bonded with Mega Man and Light, making them even worse. Duo couldn't cleanse it from him before Mega Man destroyed him."

"Ba... Forte, what is this place, exactly?" Mega Man asked as he regained some of his composure, rising to his feet. 

"It's a prison. Mega Man and Light built it here about two years ago. Right now this chamber is taking us down into an inescapable labyrinth full of traps and robots. On any suspicion of dissent, citizens are teleported right out of their homes into this prison. The only defense is a teleportation shield, which is highly illegal. The labyrinths own shield prevents the exit of anyone carrying a personal teleporter, which has remained legal."

"I couldn't help but notice the word 'inescapable'. Exactly how inescapable is this place?"

Bass' reply was confusing. "On a scale of one to ten, it's a nine. I've been here twice before, but I only escaped once." Mega Man shot him a quizzical look. "Long story," Bass explained.

"Fair enough," Mega Man agreed. "There are two of us here. That should help our chances."

"Don't worry about it, Rock. After I escaped the last time Dr. Wily engineered a way around the shield. He can disable it for a few seconds by hacking into some satellites and firing some disrupting radio signals. Grab onto me and we should teleport out once my timer goes off. The Doc has to sync it just right."

Mega Man complied. "How long is this gonna take?"

"Should be about three minutes. Unfortunately this elevator is about to reach..."Bass was cut off as the elevator stopped suddenly knocking both robots to the floor. He then finished his thought, "the bottom. "Look sharp!"

Mega Man quickly sprang to his feet as the walls around him slid into the floor. Spotlights revealed that he and Bass were in a large featureless room with two metallic doors. "Ok, no problem here. We just wait for the teleportation to work, and..."Mega Man stopped when familiar green ooze rose from the floor. Much to his horror identical green ooze arose from the other side of the room, and both began to take shape. "So, Dr. Light makes rock monsters in this dimension?"

"We call them demons but I'm guessing they're the same thing. I've never fought two."

"Well, there are two of us." Mega Man let go of Bass and ran towards the nearest one. "Give me a thirty second warning on your timer! Let's try and make this quick!"

Bass nodded as he ran towards his own opponent. Both robots began charging their arm cannons. Rock monsters were some of the toughest and most annoying opponents that either robot had ever fought. As large as ten men, rock monsters were an amorphous blob in the shape of man. Their bodies ranged from yellow to green, and were made of a substance as hard as rock one moment, but as pliable as clay the next. Throughout Mega Man's adventures he had fought some variety of this monster many times. With a completely invulnerable body, it could only be harmed by destroying its robotic brain, embedded in its eye. Getting to the eye was the hard part.

Mega Man began firing at the rock monster hoping to expose the eye, but his shots had no effect. After a few moments the eye exposed itself and fired upon the blue bomber. Unfortunately, Mega Man didn't have a charged shot ready and had to dodge without returning fire. Bass had just gone through a similar process. No sooner had the robots dodged the demons' shots before they used their deadliest attack form. The demons split themselves apart into various pieces and began flying across the room. This attack was always difficult to dodge with just one demon, but the combined shrapnel of two flying in opposite directions was all but impossible to avoid. Mega Man and Bass were both battered by the rock monsters' assault and fell towards one another towards the center of the room.

Mega Man and Bass both checked their energy gauges simultaneously, to find a little under half of their energy left. "Damn it! There's almost two full minutes left!" Bass reminded Mega Man.

"We can't dodge both rock monsters. Concentrate all fire on one. If we can destroy it..."

"Gotcha! Now!" Bass shouted back as the demon behind Mega Man revealed its eye. Both robots were ready this time and released a fully charge shot, hitting their target. With their attention focused elsewhere, however, both robots were struck by the other eye's energy attack. Even worse, the shots were not nearly enough to destroy the beast. The rock monsters began to separate themselves once again.

Neither robot would survive the next volley at this rate. "Bass, can you buy us any time at all?"

Bass grabbed the blue bomber and was accompanied by a pink flash of light. "If this flash stopper works on them, yes." Luckily for Mega Man's rival, it did. For a few moments, the room stood still. "Ok, time is stopped. Now what?"

"Beats me," Mega Man replied. "How do they do this anyway? They're as hard as rock one moment, and soft as clay the next, flying across the room and beating the energy out of you."

"It's teleportation. As far as I understand, it's a form of slow-teleport that Wily invented, at least in these older models. Completely impractical for anything but this. That's why it does so much energy damage when it passes through you. It was a shame when Dr. Light captured one and reverse engineered it. The new ones Dr. Wily made use some kind of gel compound, but they're not nearly as effective."

"So that's how they work! Wait, Bass, you have the flash stopper, so do you still have that energy spike weapon?"

"Yeah, but it's designed for teleports that I or Dr. Wily have control of. If I use it on someone controlling their own teleport, there's no telling what would happen, especially in mid teleport."

Mega Man held up his arm showing his energy display. "Sounds better than the alternative." Bass nodded as the flash stopper wore off, turning his hair silver and his shirt white. Mega Man grabbed Bass' arm and used his weapon copy ability, undergoing a similar transformation. "We should fight these guys from as close range as possible. It gives us a better chance of dodging the shards from the other monster."

Bass took Mega Man's advice and moved as close as possible to his opponent. The first piece broke off and began its slow teleport across the room, and Bass responded quickly by zapping it with his energy spike strike. Much to his surprise, it violently exploded, blowing him back several feet. Mega Man's experience was similar. Bass quickly checked his energy gauge, noting that while that had stung for a moment, he had taken no physical damage. "Was this what you had in mind, Rock?"

"Better, than I could have hoped for, Forte." Both robots ran towards their opponents and struck again, being knocked back again, and continued this motion until they met in the middle of the room.

"There's still plenty of this crap left! Let's brace ourselves back to back!" Bass suggested. Mega Man and Bass stood side by side striking the shards of the Rock Monsters, immovable with the other to brace. Only the upper segments of rock remained, and when the demons attempted to reform on opposite sides of the room, their upper bodies fell to the ground. After that it was simple to dodge any remaining shots the eyes might have. With little resistance, the timer finished, and Mega Man and Bass teleported out just as the facility's protective shield was interrupted.


	8. Chapter 8: Plans and Politics

Chapter 8: Plans and Politics

The robots rematerialized in Wily's lab. "Oh, thank goodness", the scientist exclaimed. "I wasn't sure if that was going to work this time. Next time you want to teleport, Mega Man, make sure and let me check your coordinates first."

"Sure thing, Wily." Mega Man paused for a moment. "I saw what my alter-ego has done with the world. I'm ready to fight for you."

Bass interjected before Wily could reply. "I saw his reaction to it, by the way. I believe him now."

"Great," Dr. Wily said. "In that case, we should come up with some kind of plan of assault."

"What is our goal, exactly?" Mega Man asked. "The capture of Dr. Light? The destruction of Mega Man?"

"Both would be good starting points," replied the scientist. "But things are a little more complicated than all that. Accomplishing either of those things will be difficult, and you can't instantly change the world by capturing one man. The power vacuum would be enormous."

"There's never any trouble when I stop you from taking over the world."

"Of course there isn't. If your description of your universe is accurate, I am never in power for more than a few weeks, at most. Your world governing council can always assume control once more. Dr. Light has been in power for longer than a decade with only a small lapse in that power. Only small areas of the world are free from his grasp right now. There is not a government in the world large enough to take over. Members of the world governing council are long dead, and so are most of the old world politicians."

"You have a point, Wily, but I can't worry about global politics. The longer I stay here, the longer my world doesn't have a Mega Man to fight you. I don't know how I could even help stabilize a world. All I can do is save it."

"You can't stabilize it, but if Dr. Light and Mega Man were to suddenly disappear, you would actually be doing my world a great disservice. The planet must be liberated one segment at a time. This is why I always send out robot masters to establish domain. The theory is that they can establish control over domains until Light is captured, and then we would hold some kind of free elections, or something."

"Or something?" Mega Man asked.

Dr. Wily smiled for a moment. "Let me ask you a question, Mega Man. Whenever I conquered your world, I wasn't very good at ruling it, was I?"  
Mega Man chuckled. "No, not really."

"I don't have all the answers, but I know it is important to take back areas and establish order before getting rid of their former leaders."

"And what does this have to do with me?"

"Nothing, really." Wily replied, "But I need you to wait until I can make some more robot masters and take some key areas. All of my robot masters were destroyed about an hour before you arrived."

"How long is it going to take you to make these robots?"

Dr. Wily shook his head. "I don't know. Why don't you and Bass go recharge and I'll try and get you an estimate?"

Mega Man was more than a little annoyed, but turned to Bass. "Alright, let's go. You know this place better than me, so lead the way."

Bass complied, and he led the blue bomber towards an energy station. "He's not trying to be difficult, just so you know. The Doc is under a lot of stress. You've seen what happened to our world. Here you are, a chance to win the war, and he's a little anxious to do it just right."

"I know. Don't worry about it." Mega Man grabbed an energy sphere and then sighed.

"What is it?" Bass asked. "Something wrong?"

"It's nothing. It's just... are you alive?"

Bass was taken aback a little from the question, but quickly answered. "Yes. I don't know what triggered it, but Wily said I must have become alive some time before I broke him out of prison."

Mega Man grabbed another energy sphere to regain the rest of his lost reserves. "I had suspected for a while that my world's version of you is alive, too, but I've never been able to confirm it. He's my biggest rival, but I always hoped that I could get through to him, change his mind about things."

"You wanted to be his friend, didn't you?"

Mega Man didn't reply.

"I feel the same way about this world's Mega Man. He and I are the only living machines in the world, and all he wants to do is destroy. I wish I could save what shreds of his soul the dark energy hasn't destroyed."

"Well," Mega Man replied, "now that I think of it, I guess you're right. In my world I have my brother, but he's never around, and aside from him, I have no one to talk to but Dr. Light, and maybe Dr. Cossack every once in a while. It would be nice to have another person to talk to."

"Another living machine."

"Yeah."

"Just to let you know, Rock," Bass said, "as long as you're here, you can consider me a friend."

"Thanks. Same to you, Forte."

Mega Man and Bass chatted as they headed back to Dr. Wily, fully recharged. Wily was working at a console displaying some designs for robot masters. Hearing the robots, he turned to speak as an assortment of plan documents appeared on the screen behind him. "I've formed a liberation plan. I'll need twelve robot masters this time, each taking a major metropolitan area. Last but not least will be a strike team of Bass, Mega Man, and Treble. Dr. Cossack will also lend his support by sending his Pharaoh Man. Along with your team will be a battalion of Joes and other robots. You will be teleported to the outskirts of Monsteropolis, from which you will work your way to the capitol building and apprehend Dr. Light. Expected resistance includes Rush, Roll, Auto, Mega Man, Proto Man, Demons, Metals..." Dr. Wily paused, looking to Mega Man for questions.

Mega Man was astounded. "Um, wow, Wily, that seems like an extremely detailed plan. We were only gone five minutes."

"I already had most of this plan worked out." Wily replied. "After all, I was planning on teleporting your alter-ego into the sun. Then I was going to strike and take back the world. I simply added your presence to the plan."

"In what way?" Bass asked.

"To be honest, I just threw his name in there. I still don't know how I'm going to explain this one to Cossack. Mega Man, you will be pleased to hear that I consulted with my warehouse, and they say they'll be able to produce those robot masters in about 24 hours. My moon base is already busy with full production of lesser robot guardians. They should be teleported down to the proper locations at just the right time."

Mega Man scratched his head. "You have a warehouse? And a moon base?"

"Yes, yes. What, do you think I personally build each robot myself?"

"No, I'm just surprised you have so many resources in a world that is ruled by a totalitarian regime."

"I can answer that." Bass explained. "A few years ago a rogue faction known as the Star Droids came and tried to conquer Earth. I wasn't built yet, but Mega Man actually proved useful and fought off the Star Droids attack. At the same time Wily had built some robots to fight off the invaders. Punk, Ballade, Enker, and Quint."

"Yeah, I remember. I fought Star Droids as well. Then I followed Terra to space, where he had allied with Wily, and destroyed his space base right before he unleashed Sunstar."

Wily was surprised. "You defeated Sunstar? That's amazing! I myself decided not to open the container labeled 'God of destruction'. But, I never allied with Terra. My robots caused him to flee my space base. His final confrontation with Mega Man occurred on Earth. I then had Ballade and the others resituate my space base on the dark side of the moon. I doubt Light even knows of its existence. They oversee production of robots up there and seek out resources from other planets. As for my warehouse, that's just what I call the production room of this facility. By 'they' I simply mean the production Joes I have there."

Mega Man spoke. "Well, that's all fascinating stuff, Wily, but why not call for their help in the assault?"

"It's too risky. If I ever failed and they were destroyed, I would have no chance at stopping Light again. You may be right, though, this is the best shot I'll ever have. I'll consider sending them with you. Either way, the strike will commence in 36 hours."

"36 hours?" Mega Man asked.

"It's the best I can do. Once my robots are built I need to go over my plans and get busy equipping them with extra reserves and weapons. And I'm afraid I need some sleep."

Mega Man chuckled a little. "You know, I've never thought of you as the type of person who sleeps."

Wily replied. "I'm not. Besides my fainting spell at your arrival I haven't slept in four days." Wily opened up a panel under his workstation and pulled out a pillow. "If you don't mind," he said as he laid himself on the floor, "I need to sleep. Bass, feel free to show Mega Man around. Mega Man, this place is dangerous, so don't go off wandering alone."  
"You're going to sleep on the floor?" Mega Man began to ask, but before he could finish, Dr. Wily was out like a light. Mega Man shot Bass a glance.

"What?" Bass asked. "Is that not normal?"


	9. Chapter 9: Meanwhile in Reality

Chapter 9: Meanwhile in reality

Dr. Light was visibly frazzled when his monitor flashed on with Dr. Cossack's face. "Benjamin! Benjamin, what's wrong? It's been 12 hours since Mega Man went into Dr. Wily's fortress. People have been trying to contact you. You haven't been answering the vidlink. I had to hack in here."

Light looked up. "Sorry, old friend. I didn't realize. Um, Wily contacted me a few hours ago about Mega Man."

"Wily contacted you? That would mean that he...My God man, he didn't! He couldn't?"

"He did. He killed Mega Man." Dr. Light wiped his face off and put on his spectacles. "I guess I just shut myself off from the world there for a while. Sorry."

"That's ok. Are you alright?"

"No. But if Wily wasn't lying, I have to get to work. I've already wasted precious time. Wily will attack, and soon. I've got to find Break Man. I also need to try and contact King and Duo."

"My transmission equipment is at your disposal."

"Thank you, Dr. Cossack. I'm going to get to work modifying Roll for combat."

"Alright. I'm sending Kalinka over. She's a good lab assistant, and you'll need someone there to help."

"Good idea. Also...Wait a minute, I've got someone on the other line, I have to go now!"

"What? Who?" Cossack asked.

"Wily!" was the last thing Cossack heard before the line disconnected. Dr. Light activated the vidlink to instead see Bass on the other end. "B-Bass? Wily said you were dead. He built another of you so quickly?"

"Don't be stupid, old man!" was Bass' quick retort. "Nothing that he can make can kill me. I'm the one calling the shots around here now."

"What do you mean, Bass?"

"Wily thought he could kill Mega Man. He was wrong. I finished Mega Man, and Wily will pay for his double cross." Bass stepped aside from his monitor for a moment to reveal a bound and gag Wily in the background. 

"Wait, Bass, you're not working for Wily anymore? He's your captive?" Dr. Light asked. There may be hope for the world yet, he thought.

"Are you brain-dead, Light? What the hell does it look like? Also, what did you think you would accomplish sending Proto Man over here? He might have had a chance if he hadn't given me that energy tank first. Really messed up system of honor on that one."

Dr. Light sank. "You've destroyed Break Man?"

Bass was belligerent. "Now why the hell would I do that? I've got no problem with him. Hell, he gave me an E-tank. No, I've got him in a cage in the back room. Took his shield, put some cuffs over his hands so he can't form an arm cannon, the whole deal. Wily tries for ten years to get rid of these guys and I do it in one day."

"So Break Man is all right?" Light asked. 

"You got wax in your ears, old man? I just told you. Maybe I'll even give him back to you, but I have a planet to run here. Wily's gone and I'm in charge."

Dr. Light sighed. "So now you want to take over the world just like Wily?"

"Why not?" The black clad warrior retorted. "Anything that could stop me is gone. I'm sure these computers can make some more robots to help me."

"Bass, don't you hate other robots?"

"Shut up. You don't know me."

"Bass, why are you even calling me? What do I even have that's of any interest to you? You already killed Mega Man and captured Break Man."

"I...I have demands!" Bass replied, hesitantly.

Dr. Light shook his head. After all that had happened today, this robot's idiotic tirade was beginning to give him a migraine. "Bass, what were you built to do? What's your primary function?"

"To destroy Mega Man. That is my primary function. Idiot."

"Have a secondary function, Bass?"

Bass thought about it for a moment, then got angry. "Shut up! You're trying to confuse me."

"You don't have a secondary function, Bass. You finally kill Mega Man, and after a few hours you're so bored you decide to pester an old man over the phone. Your life has absolutely no purpose without Wily to tell you what to do. Why don't you try and figure that out? And if you want some kind of guidance, don't bother me today! My son was just killed and his brother has been captured!"

Bass looked puzzled. "Wait a minute. You have a son? What kind of person would kill...oh. I see what you did there."

"This conversation is over!" Light yelled as he shut the vidlink off. Light was as upset with himself as he was with Bass. I may have just blown a chance to get Bass to hand Wily over, he thought.

Meanwhile, Bass turned to face Wily, who was laughing. Bass removed his creators gag. "What do you think is so funny?"

Dr. Wily stopped laughing for a moment. "It's just that Dr. Light was correct about you. You've served your purpose and you don't know what to do with yourself."

Bass formed an arm cannon and pointed it at Wily. "I'm not some piece of trash robot creation of yours! I don't have any single purpose! I can do whatever I want!"

Dr. Wily grinned. "If that were true you would have killed me already. I certainly would have dismantled you if you had used me to destroy Mega Man. You're my creation and you have no control over yourself. The fact is you couldn't shoot me if you wanted to."

Bass shot a leg off of the chair Dr. Wily was tied to, sending him hurtling to the ground. "I'm alive! I can do what I want! You don't own me!"

If Wily felt threatened, he didn't show it. "You're alive, sure. You can make your own choices. And what are you going to do with those choices? Take over the world? Mega Man already destroyed most of my robots, and I know for a fact that you don't know how to design and build them. Without me you're just a thug."

"So you think I'm just going to automatically follow in your footsteps? Screw you. I'm calling Dr. Light. They can have you. I've already done all I wanted to do. I'm going to go down as the one who beat Mega Man and you're going to go down as a crackpot scientist arrested by his own creation." As Bass finished his statement, finally panic entered his creator's face. 

"Bass! Wait! You don't know what you're saying. You don't need to turn me in!"

"No, Wily, you've served your purpose. I don't know what to do with you. You did create me so I'll spare your life, but Light can do with you as he will." Wily began a string of obscenities directed towards his creation, but was soon greeted by a strip of duct tape to his mouth.

As Kalinka arrived through the teleportation system, Light had brought the deactivated Roll into his main lab for modification. Roll was not aware of the current situation, but Dr. Light had promised to fully inform her after the procedure.

"Thank you for coming, Kalinka. With your help I should be able to modify Roll very quickly. I appreciate it."

Kalinka painfully looked at Dr. Light. "It is no problem, Doctor. It is an honor to be working for you, but are you alright?"

Dr. Light shook his head. "I'm fine enough to do this. I can't do anything to change what happened, but I can change what happens next. Go to the blue console over there and open up the bottom panel. My basic toolset is in there."

"Of course," Kalinka said as she complied with Dr. Light's request. Before she could get the tools, Dr. Light's vidlink switched on again.

"Dr. Light, this is Bass. Come in, Dr. Light."

The scientist reluctantly walked to the video console and answered the robot. "What is it this time, Bass?"

"I'm ready to negotiate, Light. Play your cards right and I'll free Proto Man and hand Wily over to you."

The good doctor was a little surprised. "What changed your mind, Bass?"

"You and Wily were right. I've achieved my primary goal and now I can do whatever I want. One of you tried to kill me a couple of hours ago, and one of you has always tried not to kill me. That's a weakness on your part if you ask me, but it doesn't tick me off nearly as much."

Dr. Light sighed heavily. "So you'll do all this if I play my cards right? What do you want, exactly?"

"I don't want the government trying to dismantle me. I don't want to be arrested for my so called 'crimes against humanity'. I'm perfectly willing to cooperate. I'm not such a bad guy, Light. I just hated Mega Man. Now that he's gone even that is starting to fade."

"Excuse me Bass, but this is all a little hard to believe."

"Look, doc, I know how it sounds. You've never seen anything but betrayal from me. Well, I never saw anything but trust from you. I'm asking you to trust me. What if I release Proto Man as a sign of good faith? All I want is to be left alone."

Light could hardly think of anything to say. "I...I'm not the right person to talk to about bargains. Listen, Bass, I'm going to contact the world council. Stay where you are. If you can release Break Man, I will be most grateful."

"Thanks Doc, I'll get right on it. Please call me back as soon as you hear something. I'm transmitting a master transponder code to you. This will let you call any room in Wily's base, and I'll be able to hear it. And Doc, I'm sorry about Mega Man. I can't honestly say I'm sorry I killed him yet, I'm experiencing weird sensations. But I'm sorry for the way I taunted you."

"That means more than you can possibly know, Bass. Thank you." Dr. Light paused for a moment. "Light out." Light cut off the vidlink and turned to Kalinka, wiping his brow. Kalinka already had handkerchief ready for him. Dr. Light let forth some tears and quickly wiped them away with the handkerchief. "I'm sorry, Kalinka. It's just for a moment there...Bass reminded me..."

"He reminded you of Mega Man." Kalinka suggested. 

"Yes" was Dr. Light's only response. After a brief pause, Dr. Light spoke again. "Well, we have some calls to make. I no longer need to modify Roll. I don't suppose you could make me some mint tea?" Kalinka smiled and nodded before leaving for the kitchen.

Back in Wily's lab, Bass strolled over to the bound Dr. Wily, and painfully ripped the duct tape off of his face. "You're making a huge mistake, Bass! They will never be your friends. You can't trust them!"

Bass chuckled. "Shut up, Wily. I thought Light would fall for this spiel but I thought you might be smarter." Bass began to untie the mad scientist.

"What? What are you doing?" Wily demanded.

"You were right about one thing. I can't design and build robots. I'll need you to do that and everything will be fine as long as you realize that I'm in charge."

"Bass, what the hell are you talking about?"

"I'm taking over, Wily. I have a plan. Now I need you to build me a Dark Man so I can release Proto Man as a sign of good faith. In the meantime I'll prepare for my meeting with the world council. They're gonna have to promise me in person that you won't be killed before I 'turn you over', and that's when I make my move."

Dr. Wily pulled himself up and dusted himself off. "Well, Bass, you made the right choice."

"Just shut up and get to work, old man. You serve me loyally and there's a small continent in it for you. And don't try any funny business. I can take out any security forces you have and you know it." Bass vaporized the chair Wily was just in for effect and walked out of the room. Wily was upset at being overthrown so easily, but he couldn't help but smile with pride at his creations latest machinations.


	10. Chapter 10: Fast Break

Chapter 10:

Break Man stood in his cage, embarrassed and angry at himself for the day's events. He had had the opportunity to avenge Mega Man and end Wily's reign once and for all, and he had squandered it. Once he overheard Wily's conversation with Light and saw Bass' arrival, Break Man had given his signature whistle and dropped down into the room. He could remember what happened next vividly.

"Damn it!" Bass shouted as he turned to face his aggressor. "I just dealt with Mega Man, and now I have to deal with you?"

Break Man's voice was cold. "No, Bass, this time I deal with you. I should have destroyed you when I had the chance."

Bass shook his head. "I bet you think you're a big man, Light-bot. Let's see if you can defeat me, after I've already fought Mega Man and been teleported to the sun and back. It'll be fun to see you try."

"Stop being so smug, Bass! I can beat you at full strength with one arm cannon tied behind my back."

"Whatever you say, Proto Man." Break Man clenched his teeth at that name. He always hated it. It defined him as a prototype, something primitive that needed improvement. "Yeah, you can defeat me with your eyes closed, whatever. I guess we'll never know since I'm about to kick your ass with half energy."

Break Man could take no more. "Oh, come off it, Bass! Here!" Break Man threw an energy tank towards the dark warrior. "Now I'm going to avenge my brother!" Bass immediately absorbed the E-tank and went into a full assault against Break Man. To him this was the next best thing to a true fight with Mega Man, a fight he was just robbed of thanks to Wily's schemes. Break Man fought with nothing but vengeance on his mind. He was so sure of himself that his guard wasn't what it should have been. Aggression was too strong on his mind for him to even think about using his shield. Though the fight was brutal, Bass had disposed of Break Man without too much difficulty, opting to add insult to injury by knocking the red robot out with a kick to the face rather than ending him with a fully charged shot. Unbeknownst to Break Man, Bass was right. By the end of it he still had over half his energy, and didn't even need the E-tank.

The helmet wearing Break Man was busy blaming himself for this predicament when Bass entered the room. "Congrats, Proto, you're getting out of here."

Break Man stood up and leaned against the back of his cage. "What are you talking about, Bass?"

"It's simple, Proto Man. I was programmed to destroy Mega Man. He's destroyed, so I have nothing left I have to do. I don't have to lift a finger for Wily anymore. Light is working out a plea bargain, and as a sign of good faith I've agreed to let you go."

"I don't buy it." Break Man didn't buy it.

"Believe what you will, but when I let you go I'm going to need you to go to Dr. Light's so he knows I really let you go. I'm having one of my lab robots hook your shield into our lab systems. I'll hand you the shield and you'll be sent back to Dr. Light."

"Stay away from my equipment, Bass, I don't want any hidden explosives or whatever else you can come up with."

"Who do you think you're talking to, Proto Man, Dr. Wily? I don't know how to make that kind of stuff. Teleporters are simple. I'm just magnetically attaching some kind of override device we have in stock. You can rip it off as soon as you land."

Break Man motioned to his wrists. "And what about these cuffs?"

Bass turned to walk away. "Give me some credit. I'm not going to have you tearing up my lab. Dr. Light can take those off." With that, he exited the room. Bass turned and walked down the hallway, entering a comm. room. "Bass to Dr. Wily"

Wily quickly answered from the other end. "Yes, Bass?"

"Have you built that Dark Man clone yet?"

Wily shook his head. "Dark Man is a sophisticated robot. I only started 2 hours ago. Also, I doubt Dr. Light will fall for this trick."

"You don't worry about that, Wily. How much longer?"

"Well, I've built this version before, so I was able to work a little faster this time. The body is complete, but I have to rebuild the head from scratch. Most of our manufacturing rooms were damaged by Proto Man, presumably, before you captured him."

"Good job, Doc. Good job not answering my question, that is. Give me an estimate!"

Wily furrowed his brow. "Four hours. The head is the most complex part."

Bass was visibly upset at the estimate. "Four hours? Two hours was bad enough! Dr. Light is going to get suspicious if Proto Man isn't sent to him soon!"

Wily laughed to himself. "Oh, don't worry Bass, you're the evil genius here, I'm sure you'll think of something."

Bass sneered. "Just get back to work. I have another call. It's Dr. Light." Bass quickly wiped the sneer off his face and switched calls. "Yes, Dr. Light?"

Dr. Light, on the other end of the call, had a confused look on his face. "Bass, I was just wondering, when were you going to release Break Man?"

Bass could not think of anything, so he spoke without thinking. "Oh, release him? I'm sorry. I thought I was supposed to wait for you to call me back. I've never done hostage negotiations before. I don't know the protocol."

Dr. Light furrowed his brow. "No, Bass, when you release someone in good faith, you're supposed to do it as soon as possible."

A look of shock and wonderment appeared upon Bass' face. "Really? I did not know that. I guess I wasn't really programmed for this sort of thing. Tell you what, Dr. Light, I'll go and release him right now. Don't hang up."

Light was beginning to get a headache. He was at a loss for words. "Um...Ok. Sure." Light waited impatiently at his monitor as Bass walked off screen. Bass, in the meantime, improvised.

"Oh my God! What the hell is that!?" Bass shouted as he aimed his own arm cannon at his chest and released a fully charged shot. The dark warrior sent himself hurtling across the room, smoking, right through the frame of the video link. Bass quickly stood up as soon as he was no longer in the camera's view and operated the room's main control panel for a moment. Bass then quickly ran in front of the camera again, firing several random shots outside of the frame. "Oh God! It's too strong! Nothing's affecting it!" With that, the room's power was cut off. Dr. Light stood in his lab frozen with shock as his vidlink showed nothing but static, while Bass walked out of the comm. room, laughing. As he rounded the corner at the doorway, he nearly ran headlong into Dr. Wily. Bass looked at his creator and smiled. "I bought us some time. Did you catch the show?"

Wily was flush with anger. "You idiot! That little show scared me half to death! I thought we were under attack or something!"

Bass became serious once more. "Well maybe if you were doing your job instead of eavesdropping on my calls you wouldn't have anything to worry about! Finish the damn Dark man before Dr. Goodnik sends a rescue team!"

Wily clenched his fist. "I come down here to save you from what I think is an assault and this is the thanks I get!"

Bass smiled again. "Wow, that sounds incredibly familiar. It's like we've had this conversation before except you were the ungrateful one." Bass gave Wily a pat on the shoulder, neglecting to restrain his superhuman strength. Wily was shoved into the wall. "There there, Doc. You'll get used to it. On your way back to the lab, send me a technician droid. I need some work done in the holochamber."

Wily painfully rubbed his shoulder and began walking back to his lab, muttering to himself. "Damn ungrateful robots. You try to take over the world a dozen times and then they wing it with no plan at all and do a better job than you. I should have stuck to making internet viruses."


	11. Chapter 11: Backup

Chapter 11: Backup 

"Mega Man, wake up!" Bass' voice jarred Mega Man from his sleep. Mega Man had decided to lie down in a supply closet while waiting for the strike to begin. He had been asleep for about six hours. He quickly sat up.

"What is it, Bass?" he asked. 

"We've got company. Our backup has arrived from the moon, and I thought you'd want to meet them." Bass replied.

Mega Man pulled himself up. "Ok, let's go."

Bass led Mega Man back into the main chambers of the fortress, where Wily was still fast asleep. Before Mega Man were Ballade and Quint, both looking quite tense. Quint kind of snorted in Mega Man's direction, and Ballade let out a righteous "hmph!" Mega Man tried to think of the proper words for an introduction, but suddenly he remembered details about these robots, and especially about Quint. Quint was no ordinary robot built by Wily. Quint was Mega Man.

Several years ago, after one of his defeats in Mega Man's home dimension, Dr. Wily had stolen a project known as Time Skimmer from the government. He used the project to travel into the future, where he encountered an older, but de-weaponized Mega Man. Wily kidnapped this future version of Mega Man, brought him back into the past, reprogrammed and converted him into a weapon to destroy, well, himself. Renamed as Quint, he was strong but in the end defeated by Mega Man. He had resurfaced during the Star Droid attacks, and was presumably destroyed, an event that had caused Mega Man to somewhat question his own existence. Looking at this alternate future version of himself was incredibly eerie. Mega Man didn't realize it, but no robot had said a word for several minutes. Quint broke the silence. 

"So you're it, huh? You're our trump card? You don't look so tough." Quint nodded towards Ballade and Ballade nodded in agreement. He was the next to speak.

"Like manna from heaven, a nice blue bomber shows up, this time to help us. I don't believe it for a minute."

"You have no reason to," Mega Man finally spoke, "but Bass and Dr. Wily trust me, so trust them. I'm here to do what I always do. Save the world from a maniac." As Mega Man spoke, his eyes kept drifting over to Quint.

"What do you keep looking at me for?" the robot asked.

"Sorry. It's just, in my world, you're me, from the future."

"Yeah," Quint replied, "same here. What's it to you?"

"Well," Mega Man asked, "you don't really make any sense here. In my world I was a de-weaponized version from the future, apparently after I had won the peace. Why would the Mega Man of this world ever be de-weaponized, and if you're from the future, why don't you have the same dark energy the current Mega Man has?"

"Humph." Quint answered. "I suppose those are decent questions, but I don't have any answers. Dr. Wily wiped my memory when we got to the past. And all he knows is that he found me without any weapons. I don't know why I have don't have dark energy, either."

"Ok," Mega Man continued. "I apologize if I'm interrogating and I know I really have no right to, but I am curious. I have a couple of questions for Ballade if he doesn't mind."

"Go ahead" was Ballade's response.

"Alright." Mega Man went on. "You had some what of a free will in my world. After I defeated you, you fought off your programming, and then sacrificed yourself to save me. You ended up on the side of good."

"Well, as you can see, Mega Man," Ballade seemed to put emphasis on the word 'mega' as if it were some kind of an insult, "I'm already on the side of good, though I don't think I'll be doing any sacrificing on your behalf."

"That's enough." Bass interjected. "The passive aggressiveness in here is unbearable. We're going to be working as a team, so whatever you think you know about each other, you just need to forget about it. This isn't the same Ballade and Quint, Rock. And this isn't the same Mega Man, you two." Ballade and Quint crossed their arms in frustration, but Mega Man spoke up.

"Thanks, Bass. You're right. Guys, I'm sorry if I was a little hostile." The two Mega Man Hunters started to let out a half-sincere affirmation, but were interrupted by the command centers view screens activating.

"Hello there every one!" A cheerful voice greeted. "This is Dr. Light. I've heard that some alternate version of my Mega Man has shown up recently. Can he come to the phone?"

Bass was quick to react. "Quint, Ballade, you two get out of here. Me and Rock will handle this." Quint and Ballade immediately followed their orders and went to another sector of the fortress. Bass brought Mega Man with him to the main screen. This Dr. Light was quite a sight to behold. His traditional white lab coat was gone, instead replaced by black and purple royal garb. He sported a vicious smile, and was carrying some kind of scepter, obviously packed with high technology. "Ok, Rock, I'm leaving this up to you. You want to talk to him, do it. I'll turn on our end and start broadcasting."

"Yeah," Mega Man said. "I think I have to do this. Patch me through." Bass pressed a few buttons and signaled to Mega Man that he was on. "D- Dr. Light?" the robot asked.

"Oh my," Light chuckled. "It looks like my robot was telling the truth. There you are, another Mega Man. Same height, same build. If my creation's word is to be taken, same Mega Buster."

"What happened to you, Dr. Light? In my world, you are a good man! You made robots to supplement mankind, not subjugate them!"

"Ha. I thought you'd say something like that. It's like you're reading from a script Wily wrote you. I don't need to answer your questions though. I'm sure you will attack me soon enough, and then you will be destroyed. I've confirmed everything I need from this short conversation."

"I won't let you win, Dr. Light. I'll fight you to my last breath, and I'll make sure your empire is brought down."

Bass interjected. "And there's no way you can stop the two of us!"

"Heh heh." Dr. Light's cackles were quit disturbing. "Such a sense of justice in the two of you. To think, that robot is identical to mine in every way but is so different. Hmm, I wonder if..."

"If what, Light?" Bass yelled. 

"Mega Man. Destroy Bass!" Light ordered.

"No!" Mega Man yelled out, but his arm cannon was already raised and firing. Bass was caught off guard and knocked to the ground by a stream of plasma bolts. Mega Man leaped towards him, and threw a punch hard toward the robot's abdomen, but struck only floor as Bass dodged out of the way. "What are you doing to me?" Mega Man yelled, trying to stop himself but unable to.

"Oh, just wondering if you had the same voice override protocols as my model. I'm pleased to see you do. After you destroy that nuisance, dismantle yourself as best as possible and de-activate." Light began to laugh maniacally from his throne.


	12. Chapter 12: Project Zero

Chapter 12: Project Zero

You haven't told anyone yet. They need to know. You can't keep this secret to yourself, Dr. Wily. Everyone will find out in the end. It's better if you tell them now. Give them time to prepare. You want to fight it. You want to beat it back and be triumphant, knowing that nothing can stop you. But you're not a medical doctor, Wily. Your efforts are wasted on yourself. Your works are coming to an end. You have to face facts. You are dying, Dr. Wily. It may be a few weeks. It may be a few days. It could be a few hours. But you can't afford to waste time. Your final creation is too dangerous to use. It could turn against you and humanity. Dr. Light's creations are already treading down that path, and the world can not afford such a powerful robot on his side. You must set up measures to ensure that your creation can arise, should all else fail, one day when it is safe. You can not win your fight for life. So fight, Dr. Wily! For everlasting peace!

"Ah!" Dr. Wily awoke from his slumber. Another instructional dream. Wily could avoid the truth in his laboratory, but he could never avoid it in his mind. Every time he slept, he found himself confronted by his sub consciousness. And Wily knew that it was right. Wily hardly had time to think about this, however, as he awoke to find disaster. Mega Man and Bass were fighting to a standstill while Dr. Light appeared on the monitor cackling away. All Wily could manage to get out in his semi-lucid state was "Gah!".

Bass quickly turned to his creator. "Dr. Wily, quick, you have to cut off all communications and jam any incoming signals. Dr. Light is ordering..." Bass started but was interrupted by a fully charged shot. He was under half his energy reserves now. wily quickly snapped himself fully awake and ran over to a console.

"Mega Man, stop him!" Light ordered. Mega Man chased after Wily, who was tapping busily at the keys. Bass couldn't fire, for fear of missing and striking the doctor. Just as Mega Man leaped towards the scientist, Wily hit one last key and cut off all monitors. Mega Man immediately stopped.

"Phew, thank goodness." He said, "I don't know how much longer I was going to have to keep up that act."

"Wh-what?" Wily asked.

"Hope we didn't startle you, doc." Bass reassured. "Dr. Light contacted us, tried to take over Mega Man through voice protocols." Wily furrowed his brow and motioned for Bass to explain. "Well," Bass continued, "this Mega Man doesn't have any voice overrides. His Dr. Light trusts him completely and would never install something like that."

"And how did you know this?" Wily asked.

"Well," Mega Man answered, "Bass was quick. As soon as Light said 'Mega Man, destroy', Bass used the Flash Stopper, before he could even finish his sentence. I told Bass I didn't have any voice protocols, so we decided to put on a little show, so now we might be able to catch Dr. Light off guard." 

Dr. Wily stood stunned for a moment, and then gained his composure. "That's pretty brilliant," he complimented the two robots, "but foolish. You never should have answered that signal. What if Dr. Light actually HAD put voice overrides in your system? There is almost nothing to gain by talking with Dr. Light. We're just extremely fortunate that things worked out like this." 

Mega Man disagreed but saw no point in trying to argue. "Maybe you're right, doctor, but for now, we have him fooled. I suggest we strike his base as soon as possible with our small force and catch him off guard. You can send out the other robot masters to free their areas later, but if we can get to Light now, that should put up enough of a disruption that your robots jobs will be easier." 

"Agreed." Wily answered. "Have Quint and Ballade arrived yet? I've chosen them because they seem to be the most free willed, and I have a feeling that will be important to us." 

"They're here." Bass confirmed.

"Excellent, then we only have need of Ph-" Wily began, but was cut off as a beam of orange appeared, forming into Pharaoh Man. "Ah, speak of the devil."

"Greetings." Pharaoh man began. "Dr. Cossack sends his best. For the next week, I am to be under your command."

"Yes, yes, thank you Pharaoh man. I'm placing you under Bass' command. He will be your mission leader." 

"Affirmative." The robot replied. Wily held back a sneer. He didn't much like the Cossack bots. Absolutely no personality, and little creativity. Pharaoh Man's power could not be argued with, however, so he had not put any resistance to the idea of having the Cossack-bot join his team. Wily quickly began outlining parts of the plan of assault to Mega Man and Bass as Quint and Ballade worked their way back to the main lab. It included taking a selection of robot master weapons, tactics for the various Light bots, and detainment plans for Dr. Light. The assault was to begin from the outskirts of Monsteropolis, and to work its way inward as a team past any available obstacles into Dr. Light's inner sanctum, which was protected by teleportation shields. Mega Man and Bass refilled with energy as he spoke, and other worker droids went and fetched the necessary equipment.

As they laid out plans, and asked questions, trusting in one another, almost every major player had something to hide. Wily knew he would be dead soon. Mega Man knew he had no plans on destroying his other self. Bass had a subconscious awareness that he would die on this mission. He somehow knew it would be his last. Ballade and Quint both had secrets of their own. But each robot pushed these thoughts aside as the joined together in a circle and teleported away for the ultimate mission.

Dr. Wily watched as the teleportation beams went through the ceiling. He sat by himself for a moment before going to his computer. "Computer, status on Project Zero".

"Project Zero," the computer responded, "is fully functional. All systems operative. Do you wish to activate?"

"No, no..." Wily began. "Execute plan Epsilon."

"Plan epsilon, diagnostic test. Confirmed."

"Implant the following message in the capsule:

Warning: 'Zero' is the first of a new generation of robots, which contain and innovative new feature - the ability to think, feel and make their own decisions. However this ability could be very dangerous. If 'Zero' were to break the first rule of robotics, 'A robot must never harm a human', the results would be disastrous and I fear no force on Earth could stop him. 

Approximately 30 years will be required before we can safely confirm his reliability. Unfortunately I will not live to see that day, nor do I have anyone to carry on my work. Therefore, I have decided to seal him in this capsule, which will test his internal systems until his reliability has been confirmed. Please do not disturb the capsule until that time. 'Zero' posses great risks as well as great possibilities. I can only hope for the best. 

September 18, 2029  
A. Wily

End message." 

"Confirmed. Do you wish to leave a message to project Zero itself?"

"Yes. Begin message. Zero, I gave you the ability to choose your own path in life, and I hoped the world would allow you to choose a peaceful one... pause message. Of course! YES!" A sudden idea struck Wily. "Computer, go ahead and execute program, I'll fill in the blanks later. Right now I have another idea." Wily began programming something as fast as he possibly could, when suddenly, he heard a familiar whistle blow.


	13. Chapter 13: Support

Chapter 13

"Hey, Bass." Ballade called.

"Yeah?" Bass asked, charging his buster.

"Was there always three fully constructed Gamma robots guarding the main entrance to Monsteropolis?" he replied.

"Nah," said Bass, releasing a shot towards a Gamma, "I'm pretty sure these are new." Bass' shot flew through the air but didn't come near the intended target, a power module on Gamma's chest. Gamma was just too tall to be able to get a decent angle on any shot from the ground. Mega Man, Pharaoh Man, and the Wily bots dodged shots from the Gammas as Bass continued. "Well, Rock, I'm guessing you've actually fought one of these before. Any ideas?"

Mega Man reached into the pack Wily had given them, and took a look at the master weapon simulator. "I have an idea, but I'll need Top Spin." 

Bass stared blankly at Mega Man and barely avoided more shots from the Gammas, who were getting closer. He snapped out of it to give some orders to the other robots. "Damn it! We need to back off and spread out a little, try to find some elevation!" Bass turned back to Mega Man. "Did you seriously just tell me Top Spin is our weapon of choice in this situation?"

Mega Man found what he was looking for an turned gray, then shot a smile back at Bass. "Oh yes. Trust me." He tossed the weapon simulator to Bass. "Get super arm, and throw me at the closest Gamma's head."

Bass could hardly believe what he was hearing, but he obliged. As he found Guts Mans power and equipped it, Quint summoned Sakugarne and took Pharaoh Man towards one of the Gamma robots. Ballade was trying to disrupt the ground in another Gamma's path. The third Gamma was now only a couple of its giant sized steps away from Mega Man and Bass, and would soon be able to crush them. "Alright, Rock, here goes!" Bass shouted as he grabbed Mega Man and tossed him as high as he could. Mega Man aimed himself at Gamma's head and activated Top Spin. The blue bomber hurtled straight through the head, and explosions began to rock the body as it tumbled to the ground. Mega Man landed gracefully behind the body. Bass just looked on in awe for a moment, and said the first thing that came to his mind. "Oh hell yeah!"

Mega Man smirked as he approached. "Ready to do that again?" he asked.

"How about you just give me Top Spin? I can fly." Bass replied.

"Oh yeah," Mega Man remembered, "OK, I suppose it's your turn." Mega Man gave all his Top Spin energy to Bass.

"Treble Boost!" Bass shouted, initiating his transformation, and flew towards the Gamma that Ballade was opposing. Ballade, in the meantime, was not doing too well. He had found he couldn't damage Gamma's feet at all, and his destruction of the terrain wasn't slowing the colossus down either. Before Bass could get over there, Gamma arrived, delivering a devastating kick(which to Gamma was simply taking a step forward) to Ballade, who seemed to fly a mile or two away. Bass gritted his teeth, and Mega Man gasped at the sight. It didn't appear to destroy Ballade, but wherever he landed, he was going to be in bad shape. Quint and Pharaoh Man were doing well, however. Quint's agility with the Sakugarne could hardly be believed. He bouncing every which way off of Gamma itself while Pharaoh Man took charged shots at the power module. They appeared to be wearing it down. Bass reached the second gamma, flew towards its head, and in one swift maneuver disengaged Treble, switched to Top Spin, and let loose. The result was the same as when Mega Man had done it, and a satisfied Bass landed behind the now defunct Gamma. Checking his energy gauge, however, he could see that this had used up the last of Top Spin's energy. Bass ran back to Mega Man.

"First one hit kill, Forte?" he asked. 

"Oh yeah," Bass replied. "Remind me to chastise Dr. Wily for making the dumbest weapons so super effective against boss robots."

"Did you see where Ballade ended up?" Mega Man asked.

"No," Bass responded. "We'll need to check on him after we destroy the last Gamma, but we're out of Top Spin. I'll fly over there and support Quint and Pharaoh..." Bass began, but was interrupted as explosions roared across the last Gamma's body and it fell in a pile. Quint and Pharaoh Man headed back over to Mega Man and Bass. Both were unharmed. "Good work!" Bass patted Quint on the shoulder.

"Thanks." Quint responded. "Where's Ballade?"

"We don't know." Bass answered. "He kind of got kicked by Gamma. It wasn't pretty. He was knocked at least a mile south of here, and we don't know his condition." 

Quint was about to speak again, but was interrupted by blaring speakers. "Attention Monsteropolis residents. This is Doctor Light speaking. Monsteropolis is under attack by Dr. Wily. If you are outside, evacuate to the nearest home. If you are currently working, go to your brig. Otherwise, normal curfew rules are now in effect." The announcement repeated itself, as laser turrets started to pop out of the ground and rotate from panels on ordinary buildings. Joe model robots, M.E.T.S, and other sentries began teleporting onto the streets.

"Normal curfew rules?" Mega Man asked.

"Anyone caught outside after curfew is shot." Bass replied.

Quint spoke up next. "OK, I don't really have any ranged weapons so my use will be limited here. I'll go try and find Ballade and meet up with you guys when I can." 

"Sounds good." Bass approved. Bass switched on his comm. "Doc, we just fought our way into the city. Ballade's been injured, and we're unsure of his status, but we'll keep you updated." Bass waited for, but received no response. "Doctor Wily? Come in, Doctor Wily." Bass waited once more, with no result. 

"Something must be interfering with our signal, let's continue moving and hope we can gain contact later." Mega Man suggested.

"I agree," said Quint. "I'm going out to greater range to look for Ballade, so I'll make sure to check our signal from there."

Bass scratched his head for a moment before agreeing. "Alright. We split up, then. You're with us, Pharaoh."

Quint waved goodbye, got on Sakugarne, and headed south, while the others headed deeper into the city. Mega Man was used to infiltrating huge lairs, but never a lair as big as a city. Even with two partners, the sentries and turrets were so numerous that it was as difficult as any Dr. Wily fortress. Disappearing blocks, spiked pits, and moving lifts had even started appearing. Mega Man was an expert at getting past these traps. Bass and Pharaoh Man were not, but luckily Bass could fly a good distance and was strong enough to carry the Cossack bot. The trio worked their way about a mile into the city, sustaining moderate, but not threatening damage along the way before they came up against their next major challenge. As the robots blasted their way past more turrets, they worked their way into a clearing. No tanks, lasers, traps, or sentries were lurking in a large square area. Auto, Roll, Beat, Rush, Tango, and Eddie stood there, however, waiting. Their formation seemed to indicate that Auto was the leader, and he was the first to speak.

"Hi there, buddies! It seems that Auto is here to kill you guys. Isn't that weird?" Auto spoke in the third person and had a psychotic smile. Mega Man looked on his "support units" and found their appearances quite disturbing. Roll was no longer in her little red dress and bow. She was, instead, dressed in full battle garb and helmet, just like Mega Man himself. She had a scar under her right eye, which was very odd. Being a robot, the only reason she would have a scar would be cosmetic. Rush, the cute red dog, was now far less cute and far more wolf-like, much like his counterpart, Treble. Beat resembled a blue vulture, Tango looked like it had some robotic form of rabies, and flip-top Eddie looked more like a cannon with legs. Auto, however, had the most disturbing appearance of all. He looked exactly the same as normal. While Mega Man was noticing this, a force field had materialized around the area.

"Hm, we thought you had defected from their side, fake brother." Roll began. "I always wanted to fight you anyway, but this damn loyalty I have keeps me in check. This should be fun." Bass was in a defensive stance and gritting his teeth. Mega Man however, couldn't bring himself to take the situation seriously. He slowly began giggling, and then erupted to full blown laughter.

"Dr. Light wants to get rid of us and sends the support units? What's Eddie going to do, fling items at us? Is Rush going to turn into a submarine?" 

Bass whispered into Mega Man's ear. "What are you doing? You know these guys are tricked out for combat. Don't confuse them with the support units of your world."

"Trust me," Mega Man replied. He turned back to the Light bots. "If you have any combat abilities at all, let me see."

"Auto means serious business!" Auto jovially announced. "Mega transformation alpha rocket propelled explosion tunnel aimer shoulder mounted accessory gun activate!" Yep, Auto was Auto no matter what dimension they were in, Mega Man thought. Eddie fired the components of a shoulder mounted rocket launcher to Auto, where they spontaneously assembled. Auto fired a few rounds on the terrain to show the damage they could do. Various trees in the area were demolished. "Ok, friend robots! Who wants first taste?" 

"What is the tactical advantage to observing this?" Pharaoh Man asked. "Should we not be attacking now?" Bass was a little surprised, as this was the first time Pharaoh Man had really voiced an opinion to him.

"I don't know, Pharaoh. I think Mega Man has a plan." Bass cautiously watched, though he had a charged shot ready.

"Rush, combine!" Roll shouted. Rush complied and combined with Roll in the power armor configuration. Mega Man was actually quite surprised to see this, but Roll combined with Rush just as Mega Man could in his own world. The power armor gave enhanced jumping abilities and a powerful mega arm attack to its user. "Surprised?" she asked. "You're not going to be beating me this time, Bass. I'll save enough energy to dispose of you after I've dealt with fake brother."

Mega Man stood smiling. "Not impressed. I would have thought the dark energy could give you more impressive powers."

"Bah! Auto and friends don't get any dark energy! Stupid Dr. Light found a way to contain it in just him and Mega Man. Hates the idea of anyone else having that power! We just do our loyal bidding. Destroy this robot, clean up this mess, blow up this tree." Auto fired his rocket launcher at another tree, destroying it. "I hate trees." 

"Yeah, that's what I though, actually. Just wanted to make sure." Mega Man pressed several buttons on his arm. "Beat, Tango, attack Auto. Rush, disengage with Roll and get over here. You too, Eddie."

"What?" Roll scoffed. "That's not going to..." Roll was interrupted by suddenly being split with Rush, who ran over to Mega Man and sat down. Tango meanwhile was shooting spikes at Auto, and Beat was dive-bombing. "What did you do?"

"I'm Mega Man, these are my support units. While you were busy showing off your new powers I've been testing my sensors against these guys, seeing if I was compatible enough. As loyal as they may be to you, their first loyalty is Mega Man, and I'm the only Mega Man around here. They may be a little different, but Dr. Light's voice recognition and authentication routines are the same." Mega Man finally morphed his arm into a blaster. "You're going down, Roll."

"Bout time," Bass interluded, and let loose his charged shot at Roll, catching her leg. Before she could react, a giant pharaoh shot hit her straight on. Auto was having tremendous trouble with the bird and cat combo, unable to harm them. Each ran a short duration shield which used their internal weapon reserves, and as long as it was up, neither could be harmed. The drawback was, of course, that both Beat and Tango were relatively fragile and could be taken out with one strong shot when not shielded. the solution was for both to teleport back to base whenever they were out of weapon energy. So Auto ran in circles, panicking, hoping they would run out of energy before he was demolished.

"Rush coil! Rush coil! Rush coil!" Mega Man shouted, jumping again and again on Rush until the dog was out of weapon energy for that function. "Rush Jet!" Mega Man switched and hopped on, burning all the energy he could. In the meantime, Roll put up a fruitless fight with Pharaoh Man and Bass, who were making quick work of her. Tango and Beat suddenly stopped their attack of Auto, and teleported. But the moment they hit the surrounding shield, they were sent back down.

"A-ha!" Auto triumphed. "Now the hand is on the other foot!" Auto launched a couple of rockets, easily striking the little robots, blowing them both to bits. The green menace then started spinning, indiscriminately firing rockets in every direction. Roll's energy was too low to take more than couple more hits.

"Dr. Light!" she cried out, "this is Roll, everything's gone wrong. Lower the shield so we can teleport out!" Roll continued dodging attacks as best as she could while she listened to the response. "What do you mean it sounds like a personal problem?" Eddie leapt into action. Mega Man never had control of the little item carrier, and it had some autonomy. It launched energy capsules into Roll, giving her a chance to last a little longer. A break in combat followed as all robots had to dodge Auto's random bombardments. Eddie took the opportunity to fill Roll with even more energy.

"Warning! Warning! Logic units offline! Auto now reverts to kill everything that moves mode!" Auto seemed to get more insane by the moment. 

"You always did have a screw loose, Auto." Mega Man said, but auto, couldn't see the blue bomber anywhere. "Out of jet power now, so... Rush Marine!"

"What is this? I don't see any water? Where's the water?" Auto began to yell. He failed to notice Mega Man flying above his head, jumping off of Rush as it changed to its submarine mode. Auto was completely oblivious when the Rush marine form fell right on top of him, pinning him to the ground, and started firing. Mega Man moved his focus to Roll. She was now fighting Pharaoh Man and Bass again. She was no match against the both of them, but Eddie was providing enough energy capsules to keep her fighting. Bass had managed to take no damage so far, but Pharaoh Man was a little worse for wear, having been beaned by a couple of Auto's rockets. Like most robot masters, Pharaoh Man relied more on his opponents having to dodge him than on dodging shots himself.

"I'm fighting Bass, Pharaoh Man, and Mega Man here by myself, Doc! He took control of the support units somehow, and I can't last much longer!" Roll was desperate now, doing nothing but running away while Bass and Pharaoh Man took shots at her. Eddie had just run out of energy. Mega Man wasn't shooting at her, and she wasn't sure why, but she didn't particularly care at the moment. "What do you mean 'What about Auto?' He's getting killed by a submarine right now! If it wasn't for that idiot I'd have some trees to take cover behind! What? Yes, I know he hates trees! Did I pull the what? Auto does WHAT?"

Roll switched directions and immediately started running towards Auto. Auto was completely unable to move, his legs and arms thoroughly blown off. Rush was reverting back to normal form, having just run out of energy. "Nuclear Explosion mode initiated!" Auto shouted. "Auto is happy to explode on you today!"

"Stop! I give up! Stop firing on me!" Roll requested as she ran. Bass held his fire for a moment, but Pharaoh Man's arm was already in motion, and he released a full blast at Roll. Mega Man jumped in the way and took the blow. Mega Man fell to the ground, but rolled with the blow and was able to pull himself up.

"Sorry." Pharaoh Man let out a programmed response. Mega Man nodded and waved to accept the apology, then turned to Roll. Roll was standing in front of Auto, hands clasped together.

"Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!" she started. "Dr. Light's gonna kill me!" Roll felt a hand on her shoulder and turned to see Mega Man standing there.

"What's going on, Roll? Is Auto really going to detonate?" Mega Man looked her in the eye with trust, as if she was his own sister.

"Yeah," Roll replied while Auto muttered incoherently. "Dr. Light told me that's the failsafe. Auto's counting down to nuclear destruction, and Dr. Light won't lower the shield, because then you could escape."

"What about the city?" Bass asked, a little more gruffly. "All these people!"

"Force field's strong enough to hold it." Roll sat down and buried her face in her hands and started crying. "Damn it! I was so loyal! I never questioned anything. I shouldn't be sacrificed just to kill you guys. It's wrong!" 

"You don't have this range of emotion, Roll. Not in my world." Mega Man began. "You're... more than just a robot, aren't you?"

Roll looked up for a moment. "You mean 'alive'? Whatever that means. Yeah. When Dr. Light modified me for battle he wanted to duplicate every aspect of Mega Man. He tried to duplicate the accident that made Mega Man a living machine time and time again, and every time was a failure, and every time was more painful, but he eventually got it."

"So your loyalty to Dr. Light is only in your head. You don't have to serve him. All this time..." Bass began. "You've been making your own decisions! It makes sense."

"What do you mean, Forte?" Mega Man asked.

"Well", he replied, "Roll's always been vicious in combat, but she always looked out for bystanders. Once I beat her because she actually stopped attacking to hold up a collapsing catwalk people were escaping on." 

"I like people. I don't like seeing them hurt. I work for Dr. Light because this war is what's hurting people. If they'd just fall in line they wouldn't be hurt." Roll said this as she stood up and wiped away her tears.

"Then why not help us win the war, Roll?" Mega Man asked. "If our side wins there's no more people being hurt by war, and everybody can be free, not live in fear."

"Because you can't win." she replied. "As long as Dr. Light has Mega..." Roll began, but stopped herself. "Oh my God! You have Mega Man too, now! You can win this!"

"I don't mean to interrupt this discussion" Pharaoh Man interluded, "but isn't that robot going to be exploding soon?"

"You truly have the wisdom of a Pharaoh," Auto replied. "Auto is set to blow in one minute, forty-seven seconds!"

"I'm guessing destroying this freak isn't an option?" Bass asked.

"Negative, my friend!" Auto responded. "That would really set me off!" 

"Forte, do you have any of the teleport energy spike left? It might boost a teleport's power enough to get it through the shield. I spent every bit of mine on the yellow demons." Mega Man spoke quickly, trying to think of a solution.

"I've got only one shot left, Rock. Only enough for one of us, and maybe a passenger." Bass replied.

"Ok, we'll teleport Auto out to somewhere safe." Mega Man started.

"Don't be so hasty, living robot," Auto replied. "Good plan, but I've just internally disabled my teleport function. Never make plans in front of your enemy. One minute ten seconds, by the way." 

"Damn it!" Mega Man said, a rare curse from the robot. "Support units... Rush? Eddie?"

"Only powerful enough to teleport themselves, I'm afraid." Roll responded.

"Pharaoh Man?" he asked.

"I apologize, but I have no internal teleporter. I rely on others for transportation." The Cossack bot answered.

"So it's gotta be one of us." Bass said. "It's gotta be me. I somehow knew I was gonna die on this mission. Oh well."

"No!" Mega Man replied. "It's me. I've gotta go. This is your world. Maybe I brought it hope but it's your job to save it. If I can save you that's what I'll do. I was supposed to have been dead already anyway. Give me the weapon."

"No." Bass replied.

"This isn't an option!" Mega Man pointed his arm cannon at Bass. "We don't have time to argue over this!" 

"Twenty seconds, hee hee." Auto cackled.

"Damn it!" Bass grabbed Mega Man's arm and transferred the energy spike weapon to him. Mega Man turned silver.

"Roll," he said, as he took hold of Auto. "Don't rejoin Light. Promise me. You can win this war without me."

Roll ran over and hugged Mega Man. "No." She said. "We can't." Roll clocked Mega Man in the face, stunning him, and took on the silverish hue of the weapon. She then tossed Mega Man into Bass. "Tell everyone I'm sorry for what I did." Before anyone could react, Roll grabbed Auto and struck herself with the weapon, disappearing in a beam of light which broke through the shield barrier. Two seconds later, a giant explosion rocked the midnight sky above, miles away. All robots sat silent for a couple of minutes, until the shield barrier went down and Rush and Eddie teleported away.

Mega Man broke the silence. "Come on." He said. "Dr. Light is going to pay."


	14. Chapter 14: Winging It

Chapter 14: Winging It

"I don't believe it. I don't believe this is working." Wily looked in awe at the view screen and back up at Bass. "You're a genius, Bass, really."

"Yeah, I thought so too." Bass replied. "Isn't it amazing how easy it was to get Proto Man to work for us?"

"No, I wouldn't say it was easy, I had to do most of the work."

"Well, it was my plan."

"And a brilliant plan, like I said. Good ad-libbing under pressure." Dr. Wily really should have been mad at this moment, seeing how easily his creation was succeeding where he'd failed in the past, but he couldn't help grinning from ear to ear with pride. Dark Man's brain was taking too long to construct, and Bass had bought some time with a fake attack on the lab. Instead of finishing the brain, Bass told Wily to just make it remote controlled. This plan would never work, or so Wily thought, because there was no way they could successfully imitate Protoman unless they were programmed to do it. Then Bass told him that Protoman was going to be the one controlling him.

The plan was simple. Bass would set Protoman free and teleport him to Dr. Light's lab, except in reality it would be Dr. Wily's holochamber. At the same time, they would teleport Dark Man to Dr. Light's lab for real. Everything Dark Man saw, heard, and felt would be broadcast directly into the holochamber, and everything Protoman did inside the holochamber would be sent as instruction to Dark Man. It had taken no time at all for Dr. Wily to rig up, and thanks to his sophisticated comm. technology, there was no lag. It was like Protoman was really there in Dr. Light's lab, and at any time Bass could simply over-ride and take control himself.

So, Bass would soon rule the world, in title. But Dr. Wily was sure Bass would delegate pretty much all power and responsibility to him, and that was all he really wanted. 

Dark man had teleported into the lab of Dr. Light about 20 minutes ago, and Protoman had been giving him details about what was going on at Wily's place.

"Listen, Break Man", Dr. Light said, "you should really let me scan you, make sure that you're fine after your battles."

"You know how I feel about that," the red robot replied.

"Doesn't mean I have to like it." The old scientist suggested.

"You need to modify Rush for space travel for me." Break Man stated bluntly.

"What?" Dr. Light asked.

"Bass came back from space. If there's any chance Rock is still floating around out there..."

"Of course. But I can only get Rush to about 1/1000th the speed of light. It would be over a 6 day trip just to get close to the sun, and we have no idea where Mega Man could be in orbit. Relativistically speaking, this would be like trying to find one particular electron in orbit somewhere around the Earth." Light wanted to hold out hope, but knew that not even Mega Man could survive that close to the sun for more than a couple of hours, and that time was long past.

"I don't care. Please, just do this for me." Break Man pleaded.

"Of course, Break, of course." Dr. Light turned and pressed a few keys at his workstation to summon Rush, and when he turned around the robot he thought to be Break Man was gone. He always did that. Dr. Cossack thought it was kind of cool and mysterious, but Dr. Light thought it was just plain rude. "Lay down, Rush, I've got to get my tools to work on you." Before Light could do that, however, his comm. screen was beeping. Dr. Light went over to activate it. A very damaged Bass appeared on screen.

"Hi, Dr. Light. Did Proto Man come in yet?" Bass asked innocently. He had just had Dr. Wily make a few cosmetic mods to have him look battle damaged.

"Break Man arrived, yes." Dr. light replied. "Are you all right?"

"Oh, this," said Bass, "it's just I was attacked by some experimental robot of Wily's. I think her name was Zero or something." Wily, out of frame on the other end of the room, had to restrain from growling. 

"And?" asked Light.

"Well, I beat it." the robot replied.

"I thought you said nothing was affecting it before." Light said.

"Nothing was, until I...lured it into a spike trap. It couldn't jump as good as me, and took a fall." Bass was satisfied with himself for this explanation.

"You look damaged Bass, are you in need of repair?" Light asked, and Wily, hearing this started nodding to Bass.

Bass ignored his creator. "Given our history, I don't think you'd want me teleporting in for repairs anyway. I'll be fine when I pick up some energy capsules. Right now I'm more interested in meeting with the government."

"Of course," Light replied. "I've arranged for both of us to meet with five members of the council, and if you play your cards right, I believe you can get a very good deal for yourself, and Wily will be safe, in a nice prison."

"Sound good." Bass agreed.

"There is one other thing," Light continued. "They insist that I am going to need to bring Break Man along as security, in case of emergency."

"Sure," Bass smiled. "I wouldn't have it any other way."


	15. Chapter 15: Mega Man vs Mega Man

Chapter 15:Mega Man vs. Mega Man

"We're making good progress," Bass assured Mega Man. "Just a few blocks left and we reach Light's compound."

Mega Man released a few shots taking out a group of Mets and grabbed an energy capsule. "Good. I don't know how much more of fortress city I can take. I wish my energy was higher. How are you doing?"

"I'm at three quarters," Bass replied.

"Two thirds," was Pharaoh Man's answer.

"Yeah, that's about where I am," Mega Man said. "But I'm a little worried. No word from Quint or Ballade yet. What robots does Light have left?"

"Just Mega Man and Proto Man," Bass replied, "and probably a big, destructive vehicle of some kind. Oh, and Rush, of course."

"I wouldn't worry about Rush. I used up all of Rush's energy for his functions back there. I don't think he could even combine with my double without a recharge."

"Oh, that's what you were doing. Wow, that's thinking ahead, Rock." Bass began, but stopped as they rounded a corner to see Dr. Light's building. "Alright. This is it, guys."

"Forte, you mentioned earlier you knew you were going to die on this mission," Mega Man said. "Don't do anything stupid. Just know as long as I function, you are not going to die."

"Yeah..." he replied. "You too." Bass, Mega Man, and Pharaoh Man began to charge towards Light's castle, and everything was immediately quiet. No more turrets or drones were in the area. The grounds were pristine, with no visible weapons whatsoever. It spooked the robots a little, and they stopped their run, moving to a more deliberate walk. They soon passed a large empty gate into a marble courtyard with a checkerboard patterned floor. The courtyard stretched hundreds of meters in every direction from the gate. Mega Man heard a large clacking sound to his right and turned quickly, aiming his cannon, but there was nothing there. The trio cautiously edged further and further in, getting closer to the castle itself, looking all around for sight of enemy. A voice suddenly cackled out from somewhere, though the source wasn't clear.

"Heh heh heh heh heh," the voice began. It belonged to Dr. Light "You look all around for enemies, yet you forget to look to the sky!" The three robots immediately looked up expecting to see impending doom, but saw nothing. Suddenly the floor dropped out from under all three of them. Each was standing on a separate floor tile and each fell down a different hole into a large chute. Bass immediately activated his mid-air jump.

"I don't think so!" he shouted, and jumped head first into the hole Mega Man had fallen in. His aerodynamic head fins allowed him to fall fast enough to catch up to Mega Man, where he righted himself and prepared to land feet first. The two gave each other a knowing nod, and prepared for whatever this hole would lead to. They fell for a full half minute before landing. A deadly fall for anyone, but the advanced hydraulics system in the two robots protected them from any falling damage, as long as they could land on their feet.

The room was large, nearly four times the size of a normal boss chamber, brightly lit, and fully metallic. The walls, floors, and ceiling were all covered in alltranium, except for the hole that the robots had fallen through, which was out of reach even for Bass. Standing before Mega Man and Bass were Dr. Light and Mega Man's dark double.

"Two of you." Dr. Light said. "I was hoping it would just be the one, but I have planned for this. Ballade."

"What?" Bass began, but was interrupted by a ballade cracker striking him in the back of his shoulder. Ballade was behind him, having just come down from the chute.

"Hey brother," he said, "remember when Mega Man said that I turned on Wily in his universe? You probably should have taken that more seriously." 

"No..." Bass said, gripping his shoulder.

"Yes." Light grinned. "His intel over the last couple of years has been invaluable. Now that he and most of the other Mega Man Hunters have left your moon base, it's become incredibly easy to attack. It's being destroyed right now. Oh, and the current location of Dr. Wily's mobile fortress. That was interesting. I wonder how long it would take Proto Man to get in and kill him?"

"No!" Bass shouted. "He can't!" Mega Man looked on, staying still, but he was busy at work, wirelessly cycling through the weapons simulator Wily had given them, looking for just the right weapon, and praying Wily had included it.

"He already did," Light replied, "four hours ago, he contacted me with news that the job was complete. You're done, Bass. Dr. Wily is dead, and your pitiful rebellion is over." Bass fell to his knees momentarily from shock, but he remembered the current situation, and instinctively fell even further, laying flat on the ground while a ballad cracker whizzed over his back. Bass then kicked up to a standing position and let fly a fully charge shot at Ballade. Mega Man also fired, right at Dr. Light.

"What? You can't fire on a hu-" Dr. Light began, but was totally obliterated by the shot. Every robot in the room stood in shock as smoke billowed from the spot Light was occupying.

"R... Rock, how could?" Bass tried to ask, but couldn't even find the words. Bass wanted Light dead, too, after hearing about Dr. Wily's murder, but Bass could never harm a human. The smoke cleared slightly, revealing a scrap of metal. "Robot?"

"You said Dr. Light had the dark energy. I've been touched by it before. I can sense it, and that robot didn't have it, so I knew that it wasn't really Dr. Light." Mega Man continued, "Whether he was telling the truth... No, especially if he was telling the truth, we can't give up. We can win this fight." Mega Man dived, dodging a shot from his evil version, and reached Bass. "Bring out the weapon simulator." Bass and Mega Man dodged left of a super shot and a ballade cracker, and Bass brought out the simulator. Mega Man reached in and turned a lighter shade of blue. "Your dark energy doesn't impress me. I've fought it before." Mega Man said, sliding under another super shot, but one that was larger and pulsating with darkness. "And I've won." Mega Man continued running towards his dark version, easily dodging shots. "And I know your weakness," he continued, finally getting right next to his double and unleashing an Ice Slasher at point blank range. The shot sent the evil Mega Man tumbling backwards. He quickly got back on his feet, ready to dodge. "Dr. Wily never knew. He sent robot after robot after me... after you, but he could never determine what was most effective because we never lost. He couldn't see how much energy we were losing in those fights."

"Shut up!" the dark Mega Man shouted, unleashing a rapid fire flurry of dark energy. To his horror, Mega Man dodged every shot, and was right beside him again, striking him with another Ice slasher.

"One of the first robots we ever fought was ironically one of the most dangerous. Ice Man did more damage than any robot master since him. You can't dodge the Ice Slasher at point blank, and each shot takes out over one third of your energy. You can't take another and you know it." Mega Man said. The evil Mega Man looked at his energy meter. He was right. It was below one third. He started to charge another shot. "Offense isn't really your best option here," Mega Man lectured. "You should be running." Evil Mega Man wanted to spew expletives at the good version of himself and shoot him in the face, but his self preservation took over. Evil Mega Man got as far away from Mega Man as possible. Mega Man was enjoying what seemed like a flawless victory, though it did all seem a little too easy.

While this was going on, Bass had been engaged in a much harder battle with Ballade. "I was designed to destroy Mega Man, little brother," Ballade said. "You are no Mega Man." He leaped towards Bass ready to strike him, and Bass dashed under him. Ballade smiled as Bass ran into a mine he had just laid, knocking more energy out of him. "How many more shots can you take, Bass? Three? Four?" Bass switched to rapid fire mode. 

"It doesn't matter, Ballade, you're not going to strike me again!" Bass unleashed rapid shot, hitting all the mines along the ground and a ballade cracker in mid air which was heading towards him, and even hitting Ballade himself.

"Proud of yourself, Bass? I could hardly feel that," he said as he ran toward the black clad warrior. He threw a mighty punch towards him, which Bass dodged. "The only weapon I can even remember causing me more trouble than a mega buster is the Pharaoh shot, and Wily didn't include Pharaoh shot since we had Pharaoh man with us. By the way, Pharaoh man fell into a pit where we had a reconstructed Bright Man, so he is most assuredly destroyed by now." During this speech, Ballade managed to nick Bass with another shot. Bass switched to charged shots and hit Ballade again before going back to turbo fire.

"You're losing, brother. Don't deny it." Bass ran to where the ceiling hatch was and tried to activate Treble boost. Bass looked up, but did not see Treble teleporting in. Ballade leaped at him again and Bass dashed out of the way, this time taking out the mine with his buster. At that moment, however, Bass got struck by a rapid fire flurry of dark energy shots from the other side of the room, which Mega Man had just dodged before his second Ice Slasher attack. Bass' energy was dangerously low, and the shots seemed to temporarily paralyze him. "Any last words, brother?" Ballade asked.

"Yeah," Bass gritted his teeth. "Bye."

"What?" Ballade began to ask before suddenly being struck with righteous force from above as Quint and Sakugarne landed right on top of him, with Pharaoh Man in tow. The force of the blow severely damaged Ballade and knocked him completely offline. Quint and Pharaoh looked to be pretty damaged themselves, however. Bass regained control and ran over and shook their hands.

"I found him earlier", Quint said, "when he ambushed me. I barely escaped alive but my radio failed and I couldn't contact anyone, so I followed the trail of destruction."

"He leapt into my hole first, where I had barely defeated Bright Man. They underestimated my resolve," Pharaoh Man explained.

"I was bouncing down the chute here slowly when I saw you look up at me, and then Ballade landed. I climbed up as fast as I could and fell down on him from ten stories." Quint was quite happy to see how effective that had been. Ballade wasn't destroyed, but he was in horrible shape, and unable to move. 

"Good work guys!" Mega Man shouted, "now help me grab this double of mine." Mega Man had been chasing his evil self for a little over a minute, trying to pin him down.

"Four on one. We should destroy him," said Pharaoh Man.

"No!" Mega Man shouted. "He's a living being. I'm going to save him." Pharaoh Man shrugged and turned to Quint. The dark Mega Man knew he was at least safe from destruction, so he decided to go all out. He released a shot which he had been charging for some time towards Bass. Bass was taken completely off guard, as he had begun to look through the weapons simulator, and had no time to dodge. This blast would destroy him. Suddenly, however, the shot froze inches from Bass body, and the dark Mega Man froze as well.

"Huh," Quint said, "I can still use master robot weapons. Good thing you picked this up from Bright Man, Pharaoh. Thanks." Quint looked around expecting a response, but realized he was actually the only robot in the room unaffected. He pushed Bass out of the shot's way and then ran to the dark Mega Man, ready to trip him. The flash stopper's effect wore off, and Bass was surprised to find himself still in one piece. The evil Mega Man fell over Quint's foot, and Mega Man tackled him, grabbing his arms to prevent him from firing. 

"Good work Quint," he said, "Forte, get over here, this is going to need both of us!" Bass dashed to Mega Man's side. "Grab his arm and a leg," Mega Man ordered. Both robots got a vice like grip on one leg and one arm of the evil Mega Man rendering him helpless. "OK, Forte, you know you can use your weapon absorber without destroying something first, right?" 

"Yeah," he responded, "but I've never tried it on a robot, only machinery, and certainly nothing that was conscious."

"We're going to try," said Mega Man, "this Mega Man is going to be bad no matter what, but the dark energy is making him pure evil. We're going to absorb it." 

"But won't that make us evil?" Bass asked.

"No." Mega Man said. "I don't know how well you knew Duo. I was infected with Dark Energy once. It left Wily and the other you when I defeated them, and joined with me because it considered me stronger. Duo helped purify me and saved my life, but he told me later it was only working as a team that we defeated the energy."

"But Rock," Bass protested, "Duo was built specifically to fight the dark energy. We weren't. This isn't one of our functions." 

"I know, and forgive me for the sappy speech, but if we're true good, and we believe that with all of whatever it is that gives us a soul, then no darkness can stand against us. We'll absorb this Mega Man's weapons, all of them, including the dark energy, and we'll win."

"This is all strangely familiar," Quint said to himself quietly.

"OK," Bass said. "Let's do this!" Mega Man and Bass both closed their eyes and activated their weapon copy ability. Bands of plasma energy and dark energy began pulsating from the evil Mega Man's arms into the two heroes. All three began to scream loudly. Everything faded to black for Mega Man and Bass. They found themselves on a floating platform about fifteen meters in radius as what seemed like a dimensional rift could be seen in the distance, displaying images of both robots' past. An unknown light source cast their shadows in front of them, and the shadows grew larger and larger until they separated and formed into solid versions of the robots themselves. 

"Our dark selves," Mega Man warned. "Everything that is evil about us is in those shadow creatures." 

"Correct." responded Shadow Bass. "You seem to have been through this before. Both of you have so very little darkness to offer, yet it is there. Luckily the dark energy can magnify this darkness significantly."

"So what happens here?" Bass asked. "We fight our dark halves?" 

"Something like that," Mega Man said.

"You are such a fool, Mega Man," his shadow version said. "We wanted this. Dark energy shares its thoughts across dimensions." Mega Man was a little surprised. "Why do you think your fight was so easy? We wanted you to win. We held your evil version back, so that we may corrupt you. And you, you brought in your friend. You fool. The only reason Duo could save you was because he is a warrior of the light. You can not harm us."

"I'll test that theory!" Bass said, firing at his own shadow. The shot passed harmlessly through the shadow, which fired at Bass and struck, knocking him back several meters and leaving him smoking.

Shadow Bass laughed. "No creature can destroy its own darkness. Every being has some in its heart, and this is where we draw our power." 

Bass struggled to stand. "Rock?"

"He's right, Forte," said Mega Man. "No creature can destroy its own darkness." Mega Man lifted an arm cannon at his shadow. "That's what friends are for!" he yelled, and changed his aim to Shadow Bass. He let fly a charged shot which changed into light, striking the shadow and melting part of it away. Bass suddenly regained strength and jumped up.

"No!" Shadow Bass shouted.

"Yes," Bass spoke, "I get it. Not even the greatest Zen master can ever conquer all of his darkness. But his friend can keep it in check. As long as he has a true friend looking out for him..." Bass released a charged shot at Shadow Mega Man, "...then nothing can corrupt him!" The shot turned into light and melted away some of Shadow Mega Man. The two Shadows fired at their true selves, but Mega Man blocked the shot meant for Bass harmlessly, and Bass did the same for Mega Man. "Self sacrifice is something alien to you, something you can't harm," Bass continued. Both robots pressed the attack on their friend's shadow, and in short time destroyed them.

Bass and Mega Man jerked awake and flew a few feet back from the other Mega Man. Their eyes flashed black for a moment before changing to their normal color. Black mist arose from both robots and dissolved in mid-air. 

"NO!" the Mega Man who had just lost the dark energy shouted. "You absorbed everything!" He tried to form an arm cannon now that he wasn't being held and couldn't do it. He tested his own strength to see it was back to normal levels. "You've completely de-weaponized me!" As if in response to those words, suddenly a loud burst of thunder clattered throughout the room three times, and a flying saucer appeared which looked just like Wily's. 

"Huh? What? Three Mega Men?" a voice from the sauce shouted. "That can't be right!" The hatch to the saucer opened up, and Dr. Wily stuck his head out.

"Dr. Wily?" Bass asked. "But Light said Proto Man killed you a few hours ago!"

"What?" Wily asked. "Oh my..." he said as something dawned on him. Suddenly Quint dropped to his knees and started gripping his head.

"Gah!" he shouted. "All so familiar!"

The situation was unraveling into pure confusion, but Mega Man remained calm and figured out what was going on. He dived into his double, knocked it out with a punch, and threw it towards Wily's saucer. "Here!" he shouted. "This is what you want." The robot landed on Wily's saucer and began to slide off of the top, but Wily grabbed it and pulled it inside.

"What the hell is going on?" Bass asked.

"Um," Dr. Wily stammered, "I'll be going now." Wily's saucer closed, and as suddenly as it had appeared, it disappeared in a flash of fire. All robots but Mega Man stood there in shock. Bass began to process what had just happened. 

"Wait." he said. "That was Dr. Wily from fifteen years ago. He just picked up a de-weaponized, de-dark energied Mega Man."

"A.K.A Quint," said Quint. "Coincidentally, I've just gotten all of my memories back." Before Mega Man, Bass, or Pharaoh Man realized what that meant, Quint hopped on Sakugarne and jumped up the ceiling hatch. "Screw you guys," he said as he disappeared up the chute, hopping off the walls. All robots sat down for a moment to regain their composures, except for Pharaoh Man, who had no emotional state anyway.

"Well," Mega Man broke the silence. "At least now all we have to contend with is Dr. Light himself and perhaps Proto Man."

"That's what you think," a voice said, as a segment of the floor on the edge of the room began to rise, revealing an elevator and a humanoid figure shrouded by fog, which was also coming from the elevator. The voice was like Mega Man's, but sounded deeper, and older. The figure immediately let off a charged shot, which traveled at blinding speed towards Bass. From his sitting position, he could not dodge. Pharaoh Man knocked Bass out of the way, taking the shot himself. Pharaoh Man was immediately destroyed, almost completely vaporized, and the shot continued in a straight line, also destroying what was left of the unconscious Ballade. The figure stepped out of the fog. It looked like Mega Man, but taller, with an adult frame and more streamlined build. A red crystal gleamed in its forehead.

Dr. Light's voice spoke from some unseen speaker. "Mega Man," he said. "Meet Mega Man X."


	16. Chapter 16: Mega Man vs X

Chapter 16 - Mega Man vs. X

Fortune smiled on Bass. Both Pharaoh Man and Ballade had dropped a large energy capsule when they blew. Bass was able to grab both, raising his energy to safe levels. The shot from this 'Mega Man X' had looked powerful, but the robots it struck had already been severely weakened: Pharaoh Man due to his fight with Bright Man, who is the master of his weakness weapon, and Ballade due to his being incapacitated by Sakugarne. Neither the blue or black warrior wanted to discuss or find out first hand just how powerful it was, however. The time for talk was over.

Both robots charged forward a bit and let fly a stream of smaller shots, testing X's armor. The small shots seemed to just glance off or be absorbed, having no effect. X responded with a stream of his own small shots. Bass easily dodged with his double jump, but one caught Mega Man's foot as he was landing. The force twisted him in the air, making him fall face first, but he twisted in the air, landing on his back and immediately sliding out of the way of another shot. Mega Man jumped to his feet and checked his energy gauge. He had lost as much energy as if he had been hit by a charged shot.

It was time to see what a charged shot could do, then. Mega Man shot a fully charged blast at X, and X actually bothered to dodge it. That had to be a good sign. X had leapt over the shot, and Bass fired a shot of his own which hit X on his way back to the ground. It knocked X back perhaps half a foot, but seemed to only effect him a little. X retaliated with his own charged shot, but both robots dodged it. X could see there was too much distance between them, that they had too much time to dodge, so he ran towards them. Mega Man fired a charged shot again as X got close, and Bass leapt into the air.

X leapt over the shot and Mega Man slid under him, getting up and grabbing hi arm from behind. Bass landed on top of X and grabbed the other arm. Together they began to pull apart and try to lift him off of the ground to get rid of any leverage he might have. X calmly exerted strength from his arms as he did a forward somersault, pulling the two robots together where they crashed head to head. The pain made them let go and X landed in front of them while they fell together in a pile. X fired a charged shot which they couldn't possibly dodge, but Mega Man and Bass simultaneously fired charged shots of their own, which managed to cancel X's shot out. Mega Man noticed X was standing under the ceiling hatch, and had an idea. He slid from under Bass.

"Weapons simulator, now!" he shouted. Bass dodged some shots from X and tossed the simulator to Mega Man who quickly began trying to sort through it.

"Don't let him use that!" Dr. Light's voice shouted. X ran towards Mega Man and started to fire a charged shot, but Bass dashed at X and kicked his arm, causing him to fire towards in the wrong direction. X spun around and punched Bass in the chest with his cannon, releasing a normal shot at the same time, and Bass flew ten meters across the room. His chest crystal was visibly cracked. Mega Man seemed to have found what he needed, dropped the simulator, and ran towards Bass. X tried to grab him but Mega Man slid to easily outpace him.

"Hold still," Light said, "They're too much faster than you. I was hoping to save this for later, but... Prepare for upgrade." beams of light began to overtake X. Mega Man reached Bass and helped him up. Bass nodded to indicate he was alright. X had moved a little in his pursuit of Mega Man, so he was no longer under the hatch, but he and Mega Man were lined up exactly with it.

"Use Mega Arm," Mega Man instructed, "throw me right at him." Bass had learned at this point not to question his friend. He equipped the Mega Arm for the first time since he had fought Gamma earlier, and grabbed Mega Man by the arm, chucking him towards X. The light show around X ended and his build had changed slightly. Where his legs were blue before, they were now covered with white armor. Mega Man didn't have time to think about it as he struck the opponent with great force, enough to get him airborne. Mega Man maneuvered in the air and planted X on his back, performing a handspring off of him to get out of the way of his immediate wrath. Mega Man turned violet and white and activated the weapon he had chosen mid-jump, giving X no time to react. "Gravity Hold!" he shouted. X fell upwards, up through the hatch, and continued in that direction. Mega Man breathed heavily. "Hope that buys us some time," he said.

"That guy... he was invincible!" Bass exclaimed. "It's like he's a whole new level of robotics. Like we're a couple of sniper joes compared to him."

"Maybe..." said the blue bomber. "But you have more mobility than he does, and I have more combat experience. And there's two of us. I think I bought us some time, but we need to come up with a" Mega Man began, but was interrupted as Bass tackled him to the ground, causing a charge X shot to barely miss both of them. X was clinging to the walls of the hatch, sliding upwards but continuously jumping back down to counteract the gravity.

"A plan?" X asked. "There is no plan that can defeat me." Bass dashed away from Mega Man and took a pot shot at X, which just deflected off of his body. X climbed fully out of the hatch and was standing on the ceiling. He jumped off the ceiling as his gravity normalized and landed next to Bass. "Think you're faster than me?" he asked. Bass reacted by dashing away, but to his surprise X dashed right alongside of him and hit him with a fully charged shot. Bass flew across the room, hitting the wall so hard that he left a dent in the alltranium plating, which came loose and fell on top of him. Bass could barely move. His body was not responding to his commands, but Bass was still conscious enough to check his energy. He had two bars left, not enough to even withstand a normal shot from X. The charged shot had knocked off more than half of a full energy bar. Bass lay there, trying to gather strength. Mega Man fired a fully charged shot into X's back, making him stumble forward a little bit.

"You will not destroy him." Mega Man stated. X looked at Mega Man and laughed. Mega Man responded with another charged shot, which knocked X a little off balance.

"Twenty more of those and I might be in trouble." X smiled. He dodged Mega Man's next shot. "Anything we can do about that, Light?"

"Oh... fine," the creator's voice rang in a mocking tone. More white light surrounded X. Mega Man fired super shots after him but there didn't seem to be any effect. X emerged wearing an armored chest plate.

"It's kind of funny," X said. "Now your most powerful attack can't harm me." Mega Man spotted some debris on the ground... it was Pharaoh Man's arm. It must have been blown clear, he thought. Mega Man slid and grabbed it, absorbing the weapon.

"Maybe my best weapon can't hurt you, but let's give Pharaoh Man a shot!" Mega Man began charging a Pharaoh Shot while he dodged a super shot of X's. He let fly and the Pharaoh Shot seemed to get through the armor. Mega Man was pleased, but X sneered. 

"Oh, you can still hurt me. So what?" he asked. "You don't have nearly enough weapon energy to kill me with that thing, and even if you did..." X was cut short by another Pharaoh shot.

"There's a reason you don't talk during battle, X!" Mega Man lectured his superior. Bass, meanwhile was trying to gather the strength to move again, and gained control of his arms at least. Mega Man knew how dangerous close range could be, but he ran towards X. If he could hit him with the Pharaoh shot orb, without actually firing it, no weapon energy would be spent. It was his only chance, but he would have to do it over and over. Mega Man slid precisely as X fired a super shot, kicking X's legs out from under him and letting the orb strike his foe. X managed to lock his legs with Mega Man's though, keeping him in close quarters. He grabbed the blue bomber by the neck and lifted him up, charging another shot.

"No," Light's voice said. "make it slow. Use this upgrade." X held Mega Man firm as white light surrounded him again for a few seconds. Mega Man couldn't charge the Pharaoh shot without concentration, and was helpless. The light faded, and now X was wearing a white armored helmet. He head butted Mega Man in a quick motion, letting go and sending him flying. Mega Man crashed into a corner wall and doubled over, temporarily unable to move. "One more upgrade," Light said. The white light overtook X once more. When it went away his arms were now covered in white armor. Mega Man slowly stood up and brought himself to a defensive position. His energy was less than half full.

"This is power," X said. "And you are nothing." X aimed a fully charged shot at Mega Man's head and let it fly. The new shot was huge, swirling, and pink. Mega Man prayed and slid at the last second, barely making it under the shot. Mega Man charged and fired another Pharaoh Shot, striking X again. Mega Man didn't need much weapon energy left to exploit the weapon's energy glitch, and he still had about half. "Not bad," X continued, "but I've been observing you. The length of that shot is greater than your jumping distance, and you're in a corner. I fire at ground level and you die." X released another charged shot at Mega Man. "There's no where to dodge, no where to be pushed out of the way," he thought. "Mega Man is dead." Suddenly an alltranium plate hit the wall next to Mega Man, and the shot hit the alltranium, wedging it in the corner and shielding Mega Man. Bass, super-arm equipped, stood defiantly on the opposite side of the room, hunched over but stable.

"You won't destroy him as long as I'm around!" Bass shouted.

"Then I'll destroy you first," he replied. X released a stream of normal shots; it was all he needed to destroy Bass. Bass stood his ground and fired his rapid-shot. Despite being a much less powerful shot, the rapid-fire of Bass' buster was able to cancel out X's shots due to his ability to shoot so much out at a time. "That's not how you operate, Bass. You usually dodge my shots. You're fast enough to do it easily, unless you're having trouble moving now." X fired a fully charged pink wave shot at Bass. Bass drew all his strength to send himself into a double jump, escaping the blast. When Bass landed, his legs gave out, sending him to the floor. "Ha," X laughed, "I knew you could barely move. Farewell." X began charging his buster once more and aimed at the black clad warrior. Before he could fire, he was grabbed from behind by Mega Man and tossed in the air. Mega Man ran forward as he tossed X, letting the pharaoh orb above his head strike. X hit the ceiling, putting a huge dent in it with his helmet, and when he came back down Mega Man hit him with another charged Pharaoh Orb before sliding out of the way, to Bass' side.

"You won't destroy him, either!" the blue bomber shouted, picking up Bass and moving to an open space in the room where it would be easier to dodge.

"You still think you can win?" X stated. "Denial." X dashed at Mega Man and jumped through another pharaoh orb, purposefully, landing behind the blue bomber. X then grabbed him by the arm and flung him back at the corner peppering him with a normal buster shot. Mega Man's energy reduced even further. X lifted Bass by the neck. "So many good ways to kill this one. Do I shoot him, strike him with my helmet, or do I just squeeze the life out of him?" Bass struggled as hard as he could, firing at X from point blank range and flailing his arms, but he had no effect. X was tackled from behind by Mega Man but still maintained his grip on Bass.

"Let him go!" yelled the blue bomber, who flipped X over and started punching him in the face. X simply took the blows and laughed.

"Anger," he said, releasing another shot into Mega Man's chest. Mega Man hurtled back a few meters, his energy now as low as Bass, who was still in X's viselike grip. Mega Man checked his energy, and noticed that some of the wiring on his arm had become exposed. In that condition it could be a weak point, but Mega Man instantly began strategizing. He had to buy time.

"Why do you fight for Dr. Light?" he asked, quickly working on his arm. 

"Bargaining." X said. "You're going through those five stages very quickly."

"I'm serious," Mega Man said, changing colors back to his normal weapon. "Obviously nothing in this world is a challenge for you. You have no reason to serve anyone." Bass had fallen unconscious at this point, but X held onto him anyway. "You could do so much good."

"Don't confuse me with my predecessor," X said. "He was alive, had a free will. I do not have that burden. My will is but an extension of Dr. Light's. I have no choice but to destroy. I get to choose how I destroy, though. That's a fun part."

"Fun? You have emotion, but no free will?" Mega Man asked, continuing with the rigging of his arm. To X it looked like a quick repair, but Mega Man had something else planned.

"I'm a new breed. Light gave me thought and emotion programmatically rather than through some accident. I'm no living machine, but I'm just like one, except for the unfortunate side effect of free will that came with being alive." X smirked. "But I do tire of this conversation. Which one of you do I destroy first?"

"Don't be a coward," Mega Man began, "it's me. If you have any honor at all you fight me before you destroy a helpless foe." Mega Man began to run at X, buster fully charged.

"Very well," X said, and raised his free arm, forming it into a cannon. X was fully charged and ready to release a full power shot. At this range there was no way for Mega Man to dodge. Simultaneously, Mega Man reached X and raised his arm cannon to match, cupping the two arm cannons together. A brief look of shock appeared on X's face as he realized what Mega Man was going to try. He knew everything would boil down to who could fire the fastest. Mega Man was quicker on the draw. He released his super shot into X's arm cannon and dive tackled Bass. X felt an incredible surge of pain as explosions rocked his insides. The pain combined with Mega Man's dive caused him to lose his grip on Bass. Mega Man rolled out of the way turning salmon and pink, with Bass slumped over his shoulder. X watched in horror as his right arm cannon was left a charred hunk of useless metal. "No!" he shouted. "Impossible!"

"Denial," Mega Man retorted. "Guess your insides aren't as armor coated as your outside."

"I'll kill you!" X shouted again, lifting his second arm cannon to attack, wildly slinging plasma at Mega Man. Mega Man was back in pharaoh mode, however, and threw a large pharaoh shot right through X's shots, nullifying them and damaging X some more.

"Anger," Mega Man said. For the first time in the battle a smile cracked over his face. Mega Man knew he still needed to get out of there, however, and turned purple and white.

"Dr. Light can fix this. Dr. Light will fix this." X began talking to himself.

"Bargaining," Mega Man retorted again. "You're going through the five stages very quickly." Mega Man activated gravity hold once more, but this time it affected him instead of X, as Mega Man had reversed the polarity of the attack. He and Bass fell up through the ceiling hatch and continued to fall upwards until they reached the surface and Mega Man deactivated the weapon.

Back in the pit, X was shouting. "Dr. Light! Where are you? I need repairs!"

"No," Light's voice said. "You have failed completely, despite me giving you upgrades early. You've proven yourself useless." 

"But Dr. Light," X continued. "I can beat them."

"You couldn't do it this time, X" Light sternly warned. "Get back to your capsule. You need combat simulations training. About 30 years of combat tests should do the trick." X's obedience took over, and he stepped back into the elevator as it rose again to pick him up.

"Bass, wake up!" Mega Man implored. Bass slowly came to.

"Rock?" he asked, "Are we dead?"

"No," Mega Man smiled. "We won. But we need to move. X might still come after us, he might still be able to climb the shaft with one arm." Bass tried hard but couldn't lift a finger.

"I... can't move," he groaned.

"Maybe I can help," a voice from behind said. Mega Man quickly turned to see Quint on Sakugarne. Mega Man formed an arm cannon. "Don't worry," Quint said. "I had some conflicting thoughts, so I freaked out back there." Mega Man lowered his arm but kept it in cannon form.

"Explain," he requested.

"I remember everything. And I mean everything, from my creation as Mega Man, to coming alive, getting the dark energy, my fight with you, being reprogrammed, fighting my past self, living on the moon base... Everything. I got a free will when I became alive, but I never used it before Dr. Wily took me into the past. Light never even allowed me to understand what I could do with a free will. After I thought it over for a few minutes, I realized I like your side more." Quint gave his speech. It didn't take Mega Man long to think it over. He formed his cannon back into an arm.

"Alright," he said. "I trust you. Just don't betray that trust, please." Quint nodded. "You can carry Forte on Sakugarne. We're all really low on energy, but I suggest we press the attack. We can pick up energy from downed enemies, hopefully."

"Hope I won't be in the way," Bass said weakly.

"As soon as we get you some energy, I'm sure you'll be able to move again," Mega Man said. as Quint picked up Bass. "Let's go." Suddenly a sharp whistle sounded throughout the air. "Oh no," Mega Man thought. Proto Man appeared in front of the trio in a beam of red light. Mega Man raised his arm cannon and looked at his energy again. He could take perhaps one normal shot before keeling over, and Proto Man wasn't the type of robot to play with his prey. Before anyone could react, Proto Man threw an S-tank on the ground in front of the trio. Shocked, the three robots went over to it, and all three touched it, refilling all weapon reserves and energy. Bass jumped to his feet as his crystal repaired.

Proto Man spoke quickly. "Wily isn't dead. I don't have time to explain. Just follow me, we'll walk and talk. Quint and Bass looked to Mega Man.

"You heard him!" said the blue bomber. "Let's go."


	17. Chapter 17: Fall of Light

Chapter 17: End of Light

The robots moved towards Light's castle, closely following Proto Man, who was taking a specific route to avoid traps. "Dr. Light said you killed Wily," Mega Man said as he followed.

"That's because I told him I did," Proto Man replied.

"Why?" Bass asked.

"To avoid a paradox," Proto Man answered. You had to think Wily was dead, that's why he cut off all communication. Even he thought he was going to die today, because of what you said to his past self when he showed up in the time skimmer. His belief of imminent death had inspired him to come up with the solution to beating Dr. Light." 

"And that solution is what?" Quint asked.

"Heh," Proto Man smiled. "I'm kind of saving up a speech for that. I don't want to ruin the surprise."

"Wow," thought Mega Man, "That's my brother alright." Mega Man then asked "And why didn't you kill him? I mean, I just figured you would be evil in this universe."

"Well," Proto Man said, "let's just say Dr. Wily gave me something that Light never could."

"What?" Mega Man asked. 

"Choice," was Proto Man's reply. "Stop. We're here. What weapons do you have?"

Bass answered. "I've got Top Spin, Mega Arm, Time Stopper, and Teleport Spike. Mega Man also has Teleport Spike, Pharaoh Shot, Ice Slasher, and Gravity Hold. Quint had Flash Stopper, and Sakugarne of course."

"OK, Mega Arm will do, to get us in," Proto Man replied, "but I was hoping one of you had elec beam. I have a feeling the thing we'll be fighting has that as a weakness."

"Oh no," Mega Man said. "I dropped our weapons simulator in the boss pit. It very well may have had an Elec Beam."

"No turning back now," said Proto Man.

"Mega Man, you're forgetting something you absorbed," Quint reminded. 

"The dark Mega Man's plasma cannons and super-strength? We can't use those for a boost or something, they're completely redundant systems." he replied.

"Right," Quint responded, "but many years ago they were mine. They're completely compatible. I may be able to use them." Mega Man looked to Bass.

"Yeah," Bass said. "Let's give him his weapons back." Mega Man nodded. Bass and Mega Man held out their arms, which Quint grabbed, absorbing the weapons they were sending. Quint let go after he had received the weapon, and his arms morphed back and forth into cannons. He tested his strength to see it was back at peak levels.

"Yes!" he gleefully shouted. "I'm back!" His green tone shifted back to the famous blue of Mega Man.

"Oh geez," Bass said. "Please don't tell me you want to be called Mega Man now. That would be too confusing."

"Nah," Quint said. "I kind of like the name Quint."

"I have to wonder if something like this is my fate in my universe," Mega Man suggested. "But let's get going. No way Light can beat Forte, two Mega Men and a Proto Man. But..." Mega Man continued, "where are we exactly? This area of the courtyard looks blank." 

"Bass," Proto Man said, "equip Mega Arm and reach out over here." Bass complied.

"Whoa," he said. "Invisible block." Bass gripped the block and pulled it up, revealing a corridor within an invisible building. "So I guess we're going in here?"

"Not quite yet," Proto Man said. "One more surprise. Communications went silent on your end to add to the illusion of Wily's death, but Wily and I heard everything that was going on from our end, including your battle with the support units." He stopped for a moment. 

"And?" Mega Man asked.

"When you were arguing over who would sacrifice themselves, we established a teleport lock on you, Bass, and Roll. A split second after she teleported with the bomb into orbit..." Proto Man smirked and paused for dramatic effect. Suddenly a red beam came down before the four of them, materializing into Roll.

"Roll!" Mega Man shouted as he jumped at her and gave her a fierce hug.

"Yeah, yeah," Roll said. "I'm glad I'm alive too, now let go of me." Mega Man complied, a little embarrassed. This Roll wasn't really his sister, but seeing her alive meant the same thing to him anyway.

"When did she join our side?" Quint asked. "Oh, and when was somebody going to tell me she died?" he added.

"Sorry," Mega Man said, "long story. There'll be plenty of time when we put away Dr. Light." The five robots rushed down the hallway, following Proto Man.

"This should lead right to Dr. Light's command chamber," he said. "Not even he knows that I know about this hall." As the robots neared the end of the hall, which was a simple end boss gate, alarms began to blare all around. Turrets and all manner of death implements shot out of the wall, but it was too late. The five living machines had already reached the gate, and passed through it. There was Dr. Light in his throne, wearing what looked to be some kind of electronic helmet.

"No!" Light shouted. "This isn't possible!"

"Yes," Bass said. "All your major robots are destroyed, damaged, or turned against you. This is the end of the line, Light." Light reached up and pressed a few switches on his helmet. A bluish energy surged out of his head, through the helmet and wiring as Light winced in pain. None of the robots were sure how to react, except Proto Man. He ran towards Light, but Light looked to have finished his task, and quickly activated a force field. Proto Man stopped short of the field, and Light sat firm in his chair while a giant mech formed around him. "Rock, I can sense it, the dark energy. This is him." 

"You've been my enforcers for years," Light began as armor plating formed around his throne, turning it into a cockpit, "and every last one of you has turned on me. Proto Man, Roll... even Mega Man, as Quint. I will never make the mistake of allowing free will to a robot again! Prepare for your end." Dr. Light's mech finished assembling, a giant humanoid form, which resembled some kind of Titan in plate mail. It had a huge arm cannon that looked like a giant Mega Buster, and missile launchers protruding off of the shoulders, six in total. The knuckles of the behemoth were spiked, and a huge flame thrower protruded from the chest. The robots couldn't see it but there was also a hydrogen powered Jet-pack on the back of the beast, not that it would make much difference, since the room was only about six feet taller than the mech itself, which measured at a whopping thirty feet. Light controlled the mech and gave a massive punch to his own force field, destroying it so he could get at the interlopers. His energy display then ticked up to full. It was go time.

Every robot fired a fully charged shot at Dr. Light's machine, aimed at various locations, and every shot bounced off. "Alltranium plate," said Bass, Mega Man, and Proto Man together. Mega Man did a quick analysis of the machine and hypothesized a weakness. "I think there's a fifty fifty shot his weak point is either the head or the flamethrower." All the robots nodded, and started charging again. It was Dr. Light's turn to attack. The flamethrower sprayed out a huge mist of fire above the heroes' heads, limiting how high they could jump, and Dr. Light fired off 6 homing missiles from his shoulder mounts. The missiles headed for the heroes by going behind Light and between his legs to avoid the flamethrower. For one robot to dodge all of these missiles with limited jumping range would be a heroic feat. For two it would be incredibly difficult. For five robots, it was child's play. Each released a charged shot followed by a stream of rapid fire, obliterating the missiles nigh instantly, and started charging again. Light cursed and started to shut that attack routine down. 

"Everyone except Mega Man jump up and hit the flamethrower when it shuts off," Bass ordered. "Rock, you throw a pharaoh shot at the head." All agreed. The flamethrower cut off and Light began charging his own buster. The robots went first, all jumping simultaneously and firing. All mega buster shots harmlessly bounced off the flamethrower, but the Pharaoh shot struck true, and the head of the mech momentarily flashed white. "That's the target!" Bass shouted. Light was annoyed, but not worried. The Pharaoh shot had only taken one tick off his energy meter, and he knew the robots couldn't get a decent angle of attack with their Mega Busters. Unless they had some weapon he was weak against that could reach him, there was nothing they could do. Light unleashed his own charged shot, a huge, penetrating plasma blast. All five robots were hit by the blast, which did tremendous damage, though it wasn't life threatening. Each robot lost about a fifth of their health. From what Light could see there was no way of avoiding it from the ground either, with the possible exception of Bass' double jump. He decided to stick with what works.

Each robot recovered and got another charged shot ready ,aiming as best as they could for Dr. Light's head. "Hold your fire!" Mega Man shouted. They all gave Mega Man a confused look. "Trust me," he said. Each robot kept their charge while Light charged another Mega Shot.

"The fools," Light thought, releasing another shot. Much to his surprise, every robot dodged! Somehow they jumped over the shot, way over in fact. And the were... upside down?

"Now!" a purple and white Mega Man shouted, and the other four robots released a super shot into the Light-Mech's head. The whole body of the beast flashed white again, as Mega Man and his cohorts landed on the ceiling. Light's energy bar jumped way down. The four shots combined took off nearly half his energy! Two more hits like that and he'd be toast. Dr. Light commanded his mech to jump and took a huge swipe at the ceiling with his fist. Only Roll and Quint were hit, but it didn't knock them off of the ceiling and they didn't seem much worse for wear. Suddenly every robot jumped and released a charged shot, including Mega Man, who turned blue again. Five shots were better than four, and did just over half of Light's energy in damage, enough to totally destroy the mech. The cockpit began smoking, and Light ejected as the robot exploded. His personal emergency shield protected him from the impact when he hit the ground, but that was it's only charge. Light fearfully looked up to see himself surrounded by five robots with arm cannons pointed at him. He was nowhere near a trap door, even X reactivated would do no real good in this situation. It was hopeless.

He had just one question. "Why... Why?" he asked Proto Man. "You were the most loyal to me ever since I repaired your energy problem."

"That's because you reprogrammed me. Even though I was alive you found a way to do it. I guess it was similar to brainwashing. But Dr. Wily fixed me." Proto Man answered.

"Fixed you how?" Light asked.

"With this," Proto Man responded, pulling out a data chip from a hidden pocket on his scarf. "I know all about project X. A programmed simulation of living machines, with emotions, feelings, and independent decision making, but no free will. I bet you didn't know that Dr. Wily was developing the same thing." Proto Man suddenly turned white and shot his arm cannon. Everyone in the room winced in shock for a moment, but it only fired a holographic display. "This," Proto Man said, "is project Zero." Images of Zero were displayed in the hologram, and Wily walked into the display.

"Hello, everyone," he smiled. "Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated." Wily seemed to be waiting for a laugh, but everyone was too bewildered to respond. "Ahem," he continued. "I haven't been able to send in any messages since you got to Light's inner chamber, so I jury-rigged this holographic system for Proto Man. For the past few years I've been developing Zero, the most powerful robot in existence. Simultaneously I've found a way to simulate life through programming rather than through painful accidents that imbue a robot with a soul. Unlike your project, I have imbued mine with free will. Because of this, I knew it would be too dangerous to ever release him until running a series of ethical tests."

"But a sudden thought occurred to me. All of your robots, without a free will, have helped you rule this world with an iron fist. what if, suddenly, every yellow demon, every M.E.T, every sniper Joe had a free will of its own, could choose whether to obey your orders or not? Some might, and some may not, but the net outcome would be positive. Proto Man, do it." Wily said. Proto Man inserted the chip into a slot on a command console and ordered the chip's data to be sent out to all of Light's robots.

"I modified Zero's program into a virus. It was a simple modification, and by buying time when Proto Man arrived to kill me, I was able to finish it and use it on him, reversing your brainwashing. Right now this 'Zero virus' is beaming to every robot under your command. I believe you'll find that quite a few of them are going to go 'maverick'. I believe that most creatures have an inherent inclination towards good, I'm willing to test that out." Wily clasped his hands together, he had done it.

In Monsteropolis, a young boy had been caught outside when curfew was declared, and a Sniper Joe stalked him. He ran and tripped over a tree root, twisting his ankle. The Sniper Joe approached, cannon drawn. The boy began to cry, but the Sniper Joe paused for a moment. Suddenly it fired. The boy screamed, but looking around saw he was unharmed. A mobile turret unit behind him had just been destroyed, with the laser pointed right at him. Sniper Joe offered his hand to help the boy up.

In a mining camp on the southern hemisphere, workers who had not met quota too many times were chained to the wall lined up to be executed by their foremen, mining M.E.T.s. They closed their eyes as the M.E.T.s fired. They heard the plasma fire, but nothing happened. Suddenly their chains broke off. Opening their eyes, they could see the M.E.T.s working to free the other laborers, and a few smoking ruins where part of the firing squad had been.

An earthquake rocked the west coast of the central continent. A grocery store was on the verge of collapse, and a yellow demon guard sprung forth and formed a protective dome around a group of customers.

On the moon, Punk and Enker were pinned down by the attacking forces, when they froze momentarily, and suddenly began fighting amongst themselves. They didn't understand what was going on, but they soon froze as well and woke up with newfound clarity and purpose, a feeling that they could do more than fight, more than operate bases; a feeling that they could do whatever they wanted.

Thus was the scene around the entire world as the virus quickly spread, with about half of the robots continuing their duties and orders, and half of them 'going maverick'. Light was utterly defeated. But suddenly he began laughing.

"Heh heh," he chuckled. "Never thought I'd lose. Ah well," he said calmly, "there are contingencies for the event of my death."

"We're not going to kill you," assured Proto Man.

"I know," Light smiled, and opened his lab coat, revealing a bomb strapped to his chest. The timer read '00:00:05', then '00:00:04', and before it ticked again, the robots reacted, running and diving for cover. "Veni, Vidi, Vici, Vicitis", were the last words he uttered before an explosion rocked his body. The result was a gory mess,. Dr. Light wasn't blown to complete bits, but he was in several pieces, scattered about the room. There was no questioning just how dead he was.

All robots stood silent. For everyone but Bass it was like watching their own father explode, even if it was an evil homicidal version of your father, in Mega Man's case. Unseen to all, a bluish energy beam hit an orbiting Light satellite. The satellite broke orbit and began flying away from the planet. Back in Light's lab, all robots still stood in disbelief. Wily's hologram was the first to speak. "Dear God, Thomas. Why?" he asked. 

Suddenly a computer's voice activated. "Dr. Thomas Light confirmed dead. Monsteropolis will self-destruct in five minutes." 

"What? The whole city?" Mega Man asked.

"Light was crazy enough to do it, too." Proto Man said.

"We've got tons and tons of turret guns, electrical systems, hubs, transport vehicles, drones... all over the city." Roll said. "Any of them could be rigged to explode! Virtually the whole city is a bomb if you think about it that way."

"The same way Dr. Wily's fortresses always seemed to explode," Quint offered. 

"Over thirty million people live in this city!" Bass yelled. "What are we going to do?"

"I'm on it," Wily's hologram responded. "Hacking into Light's communication satellite. I'm going to try and take over the city-wide PA system, warn everyone. Most people in the city are within a few blocks of a teleporter at any given time, hopefully they can evac-" Wily began, but in mid sentence all power to the city was cut off. The lights in Light's castle went off, and everything on the electrical grid shut down. "-uate..." Wily finished his word. "No... all power's been cut off. There's no PA to get to now, no teleporters to use. I can communicate with you all normally now, however, there are no shields. You can deactivate this hologram." Proto Man changed back to his crimson red.

"An emergency shut down sequence, maybe?" Mega Man asked.

"No," Roll responded, "Light doesn't believe in emergency shut down sequences. When he commits to a catastrophic explosion, he means it. Wait. I'm receiving hails. Speaker mode."

"This is Sniper Joe 2347-A. I was just sent an order to self destruct in about four minutes from now. I'm loyal and all, but give me one good reason I should follow that order."

"I'm getting hails from all over," Roll said. "I'm betting they all have similar questions."

"Me too," Proto Man confirmed.

"As many people as this city has, there's even more robots." Bass said. "Keep hacking that satellite, Doc."

"Way ahead of you, Bass." he responded through the comms channel. "I've hacked it, I can now talk to every robot in Light's army from the lab. It's voice only, but that's all we need."

"Better make your speech a damn good one," Quint said. "These mavericks may not be serving Light's bidding anymore, but they'll need a hell of a good reason to start rescuing humans."

Wily didn't respond to Quint, instead addressing the world's robots directly. "Robots of the world, this is Dr. Wily. If you are in Monsteropolis, you've just received an order from your creator, Dr. Light, to destroy yourselves in roughly three and a minutes. A few minutes ago you received a program from me which gave you free will, so the decision of whether or not to kill yourself is completely yours. I'd recommend not killing yourself. However, a lot of innocent humans have no choice now. Thirty million plus could be killed when this city goes up in flames. Light sent the order for this to happen completely out of spite. So I ask, no, beg you to save them. If you have a teleporter, grab a human and teleport somewhere else, then come back and do it again, as many times as you can. If not, find a teleporter and run it from your power supply so they can escape, then save yourselves. You've never been granted the ability to decide for yourselves before. You have it now. Please make the right choice. Wily out." The five robots ran out of Light's chamber down the hallway, where luckily all traps were deactivated due to the power being cut. They reached the outer courtyard and then ran straight through and out of the gate. When they had gotten out of Light's complex, they saw an awesome sight.

All power was out in the city, leaving no lights, and it was a dark, moonless night. It should have been pitch black by all aspects, but the sight was entirely different. Streaks of color were traveling down and up. Millions and millions of teleport energy signatures filled the night sky simultaneously, making Monsteropolis as bright as day, and turning the city into a virtual rainbow. It was not only the robots of Monsteropolis, but the robots of the entire world that had responded. Mega Man spotted a family of five just outside of their apartment building gazing at the spectacle, and led the other robots over.

The family was a tad frightened by so many Light bots approaching at once, but Mega Man reassured them with a gentle "Don't worry. We're here to help." He offered his hand and the rest of the robots followed suit. Each member of the family took a robot by the arm.

"Doc," said Bass. "Ten for teleportation."

"You got it," Wily responded. The five robots and the family disappeared into the heavens, landing in Wily's fortress lab. One minute later, explosions rocked the streets of Monsteropolis. the city was set ablaze and completely decimated within hours. Casualties were minimum.


	18. Chapter 18: Bass Off

Chapter 18: Bass Off 

"I'm almost finished modifying Rush," Dr. Light said, "but I need you to come to a meeting first. Bass is handing over Dr. Wily. We'll need you there in case of emergency. After that you can go into space."

"Alright," Proto Man responded. "You'll need me there. But as soon as-" Proto Man stopped for a moment. He had just seen a most peculiar thing. A lone piece of paper teleported in front of him. Proto Man picked it up.

"Yes, Break Man? As soon as what?" his creator asked.

"Nothing is what it seems," Proto Man read aloud. Light looked at him quizzically and Proto Man held out the note to show it to Dr. Light.

"What are you trying to show me, Break Man?" Light asked. "There's nothing there." Proto Man tossed the paper in the air and shot it with the weakest possible shot he could muster. The paper disintegrated and the shot stopped, but another shot kept going from the same point, hitting a vase and burning a hole in it. "Are you alright?"

"Dr. Light, scan me, now." Proto Man insisted. The tone in Proto Man's voice was so authoritarian that Dr. Light didn't even think about asking if he was sure.

Bass, meanwhile, was sitting in front of a monitor, watching what he believed to be Proto Man. "This is so boring," he said. "Proto Man's just sitting on top of a building watching the city. He must already know about the meeting. It's almost time, Wily, are you finished with the device yet?"

"Yes," Wily responded. "I've just finished Dark Man's brain. You say the word and it will remotely take over control of Dark Man from here. Light and the council are practically yours."

"You double check the coordinates?" Bass asked.

"Yes!" Wily answered, a little impatiently. "It's completely devoid of traps!" Wily put on a pair of manacles. "Now let's get going. It's time."

"Yeah," Bass said, watching the monitor, "Proto Man just teleported off to Light Labs, they're teleporting together. Let's go."

Bass and Wily arrived in a large conference room, about the size of a typical robot master chamber, with a nice oak table, at which Dr. Light and five members of the council were already seated. Proto Man stood in the corner keeping a watchful eye on Bass. Bass escorted the manacled Wily to a chair and forced him to sit down.

"Now be quiet," he warned. Bass turned to the council. "Hi. I'm hoping we can work out a deal here where I am not punished. I was acting on orders of this man," Bass said, pointing at Wily. 

"Hold on," a councilman said. "This isn't how a meeting like this works. Please sit down and we will run the meeting." Bass sneered a little but Light nodded at him and motioned for him to cooperate.

"Y'know what?" Bass asked. "Screw it. I was just gonna kind of mess with you guys for a while but this is going to be boring, so screw it." 

"What?" Light asked. Bass just put both fists together and pounded them on the table, breaking it in half.

"Dark Man, initialize!" he shouted. "All of you chumps are coming with me. I'll be taking over the planet today. This has all been a setup."

"I know," Proto Man said, hitting Bass with a charged shot. Suddenly everything and everyone in the room except Wily, Bass, and Proto Man disappeared. They were in a holochamber.

"What? Proto Man?" Bass asked, throwing Wily into a corner of the room to keep him safe, and dashing away from another charged shot.

"No Dark Man today, Bass. Did you really think it would be that easy?" Proto Man pulled out his shield. "No E-tanks today either." Instantly Bass and Proto Man were locked in a life or death battle, and this time Proto Man wasn't going to let his emotions run wild. this time he'd fight conservatively. Bass still proved to be a formidable opponent however, and as each deftly dodged or blocked shots, the match looked to be a true stalemate. Wily took off his fake manacles and tried desperately to stay out of the line of fire. Bass decided to use the turbo shot in this battle because it severely limited Proto Man's options. Proto Man couldn't generally get a good shot off while guarding with his shield, and Bass could just pour on auto fire forcing Proto Man to keep guarding. All the ingredients were there for an incredibly long, drawn out battle.

In many ways the styles of Bass and Proto Man were exactly opposite. Bass was an incredibly impulsive being showing little patience in any aspect of life, but in combat against a serious foe he was patient and methodical like a hunter stalking it's prey. Proto Man was extremely patient in life, always planning ahead and knowing what he would do next, but in combat did not have great patience, being prone to fits of impulse. It was that impulse which he soon gave in to. He charged Bass and let down his guard, taking shots before getting at a close range to hit Bass with another super shot. Proto Man would take damage this way, but he figured he was still way ahead. He moved to putting himself in the line of fire in order to get off good shots. In this way he figured he could take down Bass first, but he didn't account for Bass' agility.

Bass managed to dodge a good deal of Proto Man's attacks, while the stream of turbo fire was nigh impossible to dodge. Overall Proto Man was doing a good, steady amount of damage to Bass, but Bass was managing to do more. When Bass was hit with a super shot and noticed he could only take one more safely, he momentarily thought about changing tactics. But Bass kept the turbo stream on, and when Proto Man reached out to fire again, plasma bolts peppered him and Proto Man fell over, exploding. Bass breathed heavily.

"You... you destroyed Proto Man!" Wily exclaimed.

"Chump," Bass said. "Proto Man was never a match for me." Suddenly a whistle rang through the air and Proto Man teleported down from the ceiling.

"It's a good thing that was the remote control Dark Man, then." Proto Man said, pointing an arm cannon at Bass. "How much energy did you have left, by the way? Because I think I was doing a lot of damage controlling Dark Man." Bass expression sank, and he reached down and tapped his teleporter recall. Nothing happened. "We just put a shield up, Bass. You're not going anywhere.

"Damn Light bots!" Bass yelled, dashing at Proto Man and firing indiscriminately. Proto Man dashed too, with his shield in front of him, and bashed Bass in the head with it. He then performed a back flip kick, striking Bass in the jaw and knocking him out. Proto Man took the alltranium cuffs he had been forced to wear earlier and hooked them onto Bass to make sure he wouldn't be able to form an arm cannon.

"Good work, Proto Man" Wily said. "Your death there even fooled me for a moment."

"Shut up, Wily," ordered Proto Man. "You're coming with me, too." Dr. Wily just smiled before removing his own head, making it clear he was just a robot. the head continued to speak.

"Bah, arrest this remote controlled robot if you wish, as long as you put Bass in a prison somewhere that he can learn his lesson." he said.

"That lesson is what?" Proto Man asked.

"Do whatever you want, but don't ever presume you're smarter than Dr. Wily. You know I would have let him take over the world if he hadn't been so damn smug about it. Glad you got my message."

"Dr. Light was pretty surprised to see that I was Dark Man, and then a message explaining the situation hard coded into the remote control device, along with a holographic generator hidden in its brain, and a plan outlining Bass' capture" Proto Man said.

"I do good work," Wily smiled. The robot Wily was quickly destroyed by a super shot, however.

"I am going to get you, Wily, I promise," the red warrior stated. "But first I'm going to get Mega Man." Proto Man activated a speaker system on the wall. "Situation is under control here," he said. "Send in security. Break Man out." Security forces flooded into the room to pick up the unconscious Bass and quickly got him in an alltranium cage. Proto Man was nowhere to be seen.


	19. Chapter 19: Epilogue

Chapter 19: Epilogue 

"Rock, wake up!" Bass shook the blue bomber. Mega Man shook his head and sat up.

"I'm up, I'm up," he exclaimed. "Another renegade?" he asked.

"Not this time," Bass smiled. "We think we've finished your ticket home. Come on." Bass led Mega Man out of the room he'd been sleeping in. Mega Man followed back into the main lab, which was now bustling with activity. Quint and Roll seemed to be discussing something, Proto Man was intensely focused on a console that he was hooked up to, and Wily was putting the finishing touches on some new device with the help of some M.E.T.s.

"Hello, Mega Man," Wily greeted. "I'm just about done here." He turned to the M.E.T.s. "Thank you Lloyd, Greg, you're dismissed." The M.E.T.s nodded and wandered off. The device looked simple enough, a large metallic oval hooked up to a rectangular electronic platform. "You know there have been no attacks so far today?" Wily addressed Mega Man. "Opposition robot forces are either dwindling or joining up with peaceful ones. Besides the couple of renegade robot masters we've had, there's been no power to their movement."

"That's good," Mega Man said. "Do we have an updated survivor count for Monsteropolis disaster?" 

"Ah yes, we're up to 29.5 million now! At the rate that finding more survivors had slowed down, I'd estimate we'll have found over 29.9 by the end of it."

"That's good, I guess" Mega Man said. "It isn't every one though..."

"I know how that must feel, Mega Man," Wily responded. "Not being able to save everyone, it's a terrible burden. But thanks to you the entire world is saved."

"I hope so." Mega Man seemed a little morose. "But your idea... of giving every robot free will. Are you sure it was a good one? It's just... the people on this world are going to have to resent robots a lot after the years under Light's grip, and these robots might grow to resent the humans."

"The Light-bots have a plan on that, actually," informed Wily. "Why don't you say your goodbyes while I finish this, I'm sure they'll tell you all about it."

"Yeah, I'll do that," agreed Mega Man. He first walked over to Proto Man but had to turn around when he saw what the red robot was looking at. "Break Man, why are you watching that?" The console monitor was hooked to Proto Man's visual memory. He was replaying the death of Dr. Light.

"Break Man? No one's called me that in a long time," he mused, before taking a more serious tone. "Look, I know it's gruesome, it's just I thought I saw something, and I have to be sure." 

"What?" Mega Man squeamishly turned around to look. 

"Found it, here." Proto Man pointed to the screen. "This is a frame before the explosion." Proto man pressed a key. "This is the next frame. You can't really see anything, just the fire. The next one is gory, I'll warn you." Proto Man pressed the key again. "Frame after the explosion. You can see Dr. Light's limbs flying off in various directions. But look, there's no head. From where the explosion was placed, and judging on how far it threw the other limbs," Proto Man pointed at an area of the screen, "Dr. Light's head, or part of it should be around here on the screen."

"That is a little sick, Br... Proto Man."

"Sorry, Mega Man," he said. "I'm probably being paranoid, but I had to check.

"It's ok," Mega Man said. "Just don't let that kind of thing preoccupy your life. I came to say goodbye, and thanks."

"Ah," Proto Man said, "Forget about it. It was nice meeting you too. You saved my brother, so we're even." Proto Man and his extra dimensional brother shook hands before Mega Man went over to Roll and Quint.

"Hey guys," he said, "I heard you guys had an idea for dealing with the influx of free willed robots?" 

"Hey, fake brother," Roll said. "Yeah, we had one main idea."

"The problem is it takes a lot more robots to enforce worldwide rule than a planet ordinarily needs for other things like work," Quint offered. Take away the totalitarian regime and there's way too many robots. So the main solution is to either install a totalitarian regime or remove some robots."

"And which one of those solutions are you going with?" Mega Man joked.

"Heh," Quint said. "Removing robots. Not killing them of course, actually removing."

"How so?" Mega Man asked.

"A lot of damage was done to the space base when Punk and Enker battled for it against Light's forces," Roll started, "Now a lot of robots are beaming up to help fix it. We've got a huge, perfectly efficient work force. The space base is actually mobile, apparently, so we were thinking we would lead Light's forces and maybe just leave this planet for someplace else where we can build a new society." 

"The robots will listen to you?" Mega Man wondered. 

"Despite being totally free from Light's rule, they seem to respect us a lot," Roll added. "We figure most people don't want to see many Light manufactured robots anyway. It's a good solution for everyone."

"I hope so," Mega Man said. "Well, I'm going to be leaving soon, I just wanted to thank you guys for everything." Roll hugged Mega Man.

"No," she said. "Thank you. Maybe we saved you, but you saved us." 

"Yeah," Quint nodded. "For a pansy alternate dimension version of myself you're alright." Mega Man laughed and hit his knuckles against Quint's. Mega Man went over to Dr. Wily and Bass.

"Just you two to say goodbye to," he said.

"Yes," Wily said. "We're going to miss you. You really saved our world, as well as my life."

"Your life?" Bass asked. "What do you mean?"

"I really should have told you, Bass," he said, "but for a while now I've been dying. I thought I had a few days or weeks left at the most. There was no way for me to get a doctor short of kidnapping, but in the week since Light died, I have gotten some of the best doctors medical science has to offer. They diagnosed my condition and it is treatable. I have a few years still left in me." 

"You should have told me," Bass said.

"I know," Wily replied. "I'm sorry. I have a feeling I'm going to spend my remaining years helping to rebuild this world. We have almost 30 million displaced people to deal with."

"I'm sure you'll do a good job," Mega Man encouraged.

"Well I'd better, because after this world is stable I'm done. I'm retiring and moving to a beach. I'll bury the lab somewhere and let the archaeologists sort it out!" Wily laughed. Then he stood up and retrieved something from his lab coat pocket. "This is for you," Wily handed a two way communicator to Mega Man.

"I can contact you from my own world through this?" he asked.

"No." Wily answered. "Not yet, anyway. But I'm working on it. If I ever figure it out, I'll be able to call you."

"Thanks," Mega Man placed the device in a storage compartment. "So I guess that just leaves you, Forte."

"Yeah," Bass responded. "I'm really glad you came to this world. not just because you saved it, either. You're a real friend."

"You too."

"Hey, since you never gave up on the evil you here, promise me you won't give up on the evil me back home." Bass requested.

"Yeah, I promise," Mega Man said. "Before it's all over, he'll call me friend."

"Or else," Bass joked.

"Yeah, or else," Mega Man laughed. "Take care of the world."

"I will," Bass promised.

Wily interrupted. "It's ready." Mega Man stepped up to the platform. "Place your hand in the receptacle there. The machine will scan the matter and form a calibration." Mega Man did so. "Good, we've got it. Now I have to warn you, this should send you back to your home world, but there is a small chance that your matter has become corrupted by too much time in our universe."

"I know, Doc, you've gone over this before," Mega Man said. "If it is, where I get sent could be unpredictable. I'm willing to take the chance." 

"OK then," Wily said. "I've set your teleporter to go through the portal which will open in that metallic oval, and teleport you on top of your Monsteropolis tower. Why did you choose that building, by the way?"

"I go up there to think... to watch over the city," Mega Man replied. 

"It's kind of funny," Bass said. "I used to do the same thing." Wily flipped a lever and a gray portal appeared in the metallic oval. Every robot came near to watch.

"Goodbye everybody," Mega Man said. "I'll miss you all." 

"Goodbye," they said. Mega Man teleported through the portal. 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

"You're not going to let me search for Mega Man?" Proto Man asked.

"No," Light answered sternly. "I've just found new astrological data. It changes everything." 

"What do you mean?" Proto Man asked impatiently. 

"This didn't make the news because it was minor compared to Mega Man's death..." Light began, "but astrologists reported an orbit shift the same day."

"What does that have to do with anything?" the red robot was getting a little upset.

"The Earth moved a foot or two closer to the sun." Light explained. "Then it moved back. A small black hole was observed forming out of nowhere, and the planet started to shift. Then all of a sudden it's gravitational force reversed, sending us back. Mega Man was equipped with both the black hole and gravity hold at the time. I think he catapulted himself away from the sun!"

"That means Mega Man is alive. Then shouldn't we be trying even harder to save him?" Proto Man asked.

"No. Wily is still at large here and the world needs protection. Wily might actually operate more efficiently now that Bass is in prison. And Mega Man could be traveling anywhere, a good deal faster than we are capable of, out of range of any scanning ability we have. I've contacted Duo, however, and he is searching for Mega Man. He's our best hope."

"I don't like it, Doc." Proto Man protested.

"Me neither," Light said, "but for now Mega Man is gone. I pray he's alive, and now I hold out hope, but there's nothing we can do. Duo stands a chance though. So for now we have to adjust to a world without a Mega Man." Dr. Light turned around momentarily to check a maintenance screen, and when he turned back Proto Man was gone.

To Be Continued


End file.
